Still Flying
by cupid-painted-blind
Summary: Book Two of As the Turn of the Worlds. Azula isn't the only one on the hunt for the Avatar: the Parliament has sent out its own hunter, an Operative who works with a strike force of powerful, secretive men. Meanwhile, the crew gets desperate and accepts a series of damning jobs, and an expatriot of the Water Tribe comes back with an offer they can't afford to refuse.
1. Prelude: the Library

_As the Turn of the Worlds:_ Aang never woke up from the iceberg, and the world went on without him, and without the Avatar. Over the next three thousand years, technology advanced astronomically - literally, the people of the overcrowded world taking to the stars, colonizing a whole new solar system with dozens of planets and hundreds of moons. Now, the Avatar is a barely-remembered myth, bending is regarded as a relic of a rightfully-dead past - and any children showing bending talent are scooped up by the government for "teaching" and are never seen again - and only two of the original countries still exist: the Fire Nation, part of the Union of Allied Planets and still one of the most powerful forces in it, and the Water Tribe, clinging to life on the Outer Rim, fighting desperately for the dream of independence. The most recent civil war ended seven years ago, in a landslide victory for the Alliance - but that doesn't mean that the fight for independence is over_._

_Book Two: Still Flying_: Azula isn't the only one on the hunt for the Avatar — the Parliament, grossly underestimating the princess, has sent out their own man, an Operative who works with a small strike force of powerful, secretive men. Meanwhile, desperation forces Jet to accept a series of damning jobs from dangerous and untrustworthy people, several lives depend on Katara learning to heal as soon as possible, and an expatriot of the Water Tribe comes back with an offer they can't afford to refuse...

**Author's Note**: I originally posted this as a continuation from Objects in Space, simply to keep the entire trilogy in one document, but I've been doing a massive overhaul/rewriting project on this book (and will start on the next after I have this one finished to my satisfaction) and so I've decided to start a new document for each book. One of the reasons that I stopped posting this story was because I despaired at the quality, so I hope that you'll find the writing quality, plotting, and characterization is improved from the first book. After finishing these two, I plan to start working on rewriting the first book as well, so that it's more cohesive and in-character.

* * *

**As the Turn of the Worlds**

Book Two: _Still Flying_

"When you can't run, you crawl, and when you can't crawl... When you can't do that..."  
"You find someone to carry you."  
-Tracy and Zoe; _Firefly,_ "The Message"

_prelude_  
At the Library of Wan Shi Tong in the city of New Dublin on Londinium

Officially, he had no name.

Officially, he and his men did not exist.

The Parliament had, likely without the Fire Lord's knowledge and certainly without the Fire Lord's approval, called him in after Admiral Zhao's surprising defeat at St. Albans, the half-forgotten rock that boasted the remnant of the ancient Water Tribes.

The Fire Lord's solution had been to send his daughter — the shining star of the Core, the Parliament's darling, the insidious and scheming Princess Azula — to find and neutralize whatever it had been that had caused it. While there wasn't much good to say about Ozai, he did at least understand his daughter; the Parliament coddled her, thinking he was cruel to send her off, but he and the Fire Lord, at least, knew that Azula was a much larger threat to the Alliance than any demon the Water Tribe could summon.

Of course, Parliament didn't, and so they had sent him to aid the — no doubt confused and overwhelmed — princess in completing her duty; an Operative who no one knew about, who was expected to let the princess take full credit for his work.

He'd done worse jobs, for worse reasons, and with worse people, but he wasn't sure he'd ever found it quite so _distasteful_ as this one, simply because it was based on such an infuriating premise. Not that it was surprising, or even unexpected: Azula was a master of many things, but her ability to lie convincingly was probably her best skill.

Still, repulsive as the job was, it _was_ his job, and he would do it properly.

The Parliament had been notably tight-lipped regarding the nature of Zhao's defeat, merely that it involved a state secret that was above even _his_ pay grade. Technically, he was supposed to accept that because he was an Operative, and Operatives were meant to be concerned solely with the keeping of dangerous secrets; he wasn't supposed to care _what_ the secret was, just that it was kept.

He, however, felt that approaching the problem like Zhao had approached it — too arrogant to entertain the notion that there were things he might not be able to handle, and might need to prepare for _beyond_ loading his weapons — would simply end with the same result that Zhao had accomplished.

Which led him here, to the Library of Wan Shi Tong, the oldest and most comprehensive library in the entire multi-star system. It had managed the move from Earth That Was thanks to the personal intervention of the then-current Fire Lord, and survived the war intact through the personal intervention of himself, leaving the librarians so deeply into his and the Alliance's debts that he could wring them for any kind of information, no matter how rare, dangerous, or classified it was.

"This is all we have, sir," the weedy young man said, staggering under the weight of four heavy glass cases that served to preserve the library's oldest documents. "There are a lot of missing pieces, but they're... some of these are four or five thousand years old, it's a miracle they made it this long."

"All?" he asked, looking over the first case. The man nodded fearfully, like he'd done something wrong, and the Operative sighed. "Thank you very much for your help," he said sincerely, bowing slightly to the assistant to show that he wasn't offended. "If you could leave them with me, I will see that they are returned to their proper place as soon as I am through."

"Yes, sir," the young man replied, and bowed out of the room.

The scrolls were ancient, even by this library's standards: the oldest case was dated as 2000 AB and a question mark — two thousand years before the end of the Age of Bending, if the historian had been correct. From what he understood, the full series had once encompassed the origin and history of the Avatar, but now their story was spotty at best, and there was some question about the veracity of the information, due to its heavy emphasis on the mystical. He wasn't sure how much of it to believe, but he was willing to be open-minded, with the precious little resources he had at his disposal for this job.

It had not been easy to convince the Fire Nation's notoriously loyal librarians to give up the information that Prince Iroh and Princess Azula had both scavenged, but from what they said and the books the royals had focused on, he felt confident that he knew the identity of_ what_ he was facing, if nothing else about it.

Unwilling to accept that and intent on finding something that would give him an edge over Azula, he had continued to dig, leading him here, to one of only three known sets of scrolls remaining that spoke of bending as a martial art, and the only one that spoke of the Avatar as a living human. If these scrolls couldn't tell him what the Avatar was capable of, nothing would.

The language was an archaic dialect that had finally died almost a millenia ago, but he had been given a comprehensive education by the Alliance from a very young age for this specific purpose, and could safely boast that he was one of a select few who could still read the old tongues. There were pockets of knowledge, high-end tutors and dusty historians or critically specialized linguists, but it was little more than a boasting point to them; even _he_ hadn't found practical use for it.

Until now.

"In the time of Avatar Kyoshi," he mumbled, reading through the most recent scroll, which was paradoxically the most damaged and faded. It detailed an Avatar affiliated with Earth, a powerful woman who had commanded fans, like those madwomen from Shadow who had called themselves her descendants. The writer spoke of her with great reverence, listing her — admittedly impressive — acheivements with high pomp and circumstance.

It didn't, however, give him any detail as to _how_ Kyoshi had accomplished those works. He assumed, judging from the type of actions, that she favored force over politics, which suggested to him that the Avatar was more of a physical power rather than a high-ranking state leader. That would hold with the legendary nature of the title, even if it seemed unrealistic to anyone familiar with a position of leadership — shows of force only served to _remove_ power, not to weild it effectively and improve the lives of one's subjects.

After Kyoshi's acheivements was another history, of an Avatar of Fire by the name of... something unreadable — ink had, at some point in the distant past, been spilled or slashed over his name. His history was likewise smudged, where it wasn't cut out altogether, until the very end, where a date was given for his death: twelve years prior to the end of the Age of Bending, which coincided with the Avatar's disappearance.

A quick cross-reference with the other scrolls showed him the progression of elements: Water to Earth to Fire to Air. So the Avatar that Iroh had unwisely awoken, preserved in the Fire Nation's hands since this scroll was finished, was a twelve-year-old child trained only in bending air.

Long Feng smiled; this would be easier than he'd hoped.


	2. Chapter One: Return From Exile

_part one_  
On the Firefly-class transport ship_ Freedom_

Katara hummed as she made tea for herself and Aang. He had come to her earlier, a strange look on his face, and had asked if they could talk. He didn't seem agitated or afraid, so she wasn't worried, but there was an odd light in his face that she didn't recognize.

"What are you singing?" he asked, and she smiled. Since they'd been on the ship, he'd made leaps and bounds in learning English; there were still many words that tripped him up and he was only just starting to grasp contractions, but he could form complete sentences and finally communicate his feelings to people other than her and Toph. She was proud of him, how quickly he learned and how well he was adapting.

"It's a Water Tribe lullaby," she replied, placing the teapot on the dinner table between them, earning a glare from the Duke for interrupting their never-ending poker game, but Pipsqueak got up and grabbed a mug to join them. "My mother used to sing it to me," she explained, pouring the three cups of tea.

"It is pretty," he said, grinning, but then he looked into his tea intently. Abruptly, he turned to her. "I need to learn waterbending," he said firmly, and she sipped her tea, nodding.

"You're right," she said slowly, tapping the teacup with her fingers. "I found my mother's waterbending scroll at the Tribe," she started, although she tried not to talk about any of it at all if she could avoid it. "The next time we're planetside, you and I can learn some things from that. Zuko showed me a few firebending moves, which I _think_ I can convert to a waterbending kata... I'm not sure, though, they don't feel at _all_ the same. Iroh was better at that kind of thing. I wish he was here," she added darkly, and Aang frowned.

"Me too," he said quietly.

"Me three," Pipsqueak added, peering at his cards. "He was a much better dealer than this little punk."

The joke lightened the mood, and Aang laughed, a clear sound that made her happy to hear. Since they'd left the Water Tribe, he'd been rather morose about all that had happened and his role in it, but he was coming out of it with a strength that surprised her. He was still worse for wear, and she doubted he would ever be the boy he must have been before being frozen, but he had an infectious smile and a cheerful demeanor that he hadn't let the weight on his shoulders stamp out.

"Well, if you didn't cheat," the Duke muttered, and then yelped as Pipsqueak kicked him under the table, and grinned at them.

"Wanna join the game?"

"Not anymore," she replied, and Aang shook his head, eyes wide.

"I do not know how," he said, and the two mercenaries looked at each other.

"We could teach you," the Duke started suspiciously, but Katara huffed and shook her finger at him like a schoolteacher's reprimand.

"Oh, no you don't. I'm not letting either of you corrupt him."

"You should not worry," Aang said off-hand, shrugging, "Toph already corrupted me." She choked on her tea and tried to cough out a clarification, without much success. Both Pipsqueak and the Duke roared with laughter, and for a moment, Aang looked confused before suddenly catching on with a wince. "No, I meant — " he started, and then ducked his head, either to hide his embarrassment or his laughter.

"What's so funny?" Jet asked, rolling up his sleeves as he shuffled into the dining room, apparently having only just woken up. "That black tea?" he muttered, pointing at the teapot. Katara shook her head.

"Jasmine and green," she replied, and he grumbled.

"Am I the only person on this gorram ship who drinks coffee?" he growled, pulling out the aluminum canister of coffee grounds.

"Yes," Pipsqueak answered immediately. "You are, indeed."

"No, Toph drinks your coffee — oh, wait, I wasn't supposed to tell," the Duke said in a deadpan tone, because he was always getting into some kind of tiff with the mechanic and they both took savage glee in sabotaging each other in small ways. Jet turned, realization on his face.

"So _that's_ where it all goes."

Katara rolled her eyes. Since she'd been with Freedom, she'd discovered altogether_ too_ much about Jet and his addictions, which flip-flopped between nicotine and caffeine depending on which one he was trying to quit. She definitely preferred him without the reek of cigarette smoke, but he'd been in a nasty mood and had taken to fidgeting when he wasn't inhaling coffee.

It had been almost two months since they'd left the Water Tribe (and her father) behind, escaping to the safety of the black, but fuel was short and money was shorter, and they'd have to land somewhere before they ran out of food or killed each other out of little more than cabin fever. Aang had lately begun making himself a nusiance by skating around the ship on an air scooter because he was getting claustrophobic without being able to see the sky, which left the ship in a state of disarray that most of the crew didn't mind (but Mai _despised_; Aang was, for the fifth time, banned from her shuttle, after an incident involving air marbles and a teapot). He tried to stick to skating around in the cargo bay where there was less to disrupt, but he got antsy if he stayed in one place too long.

Now that he was speaking more confidently and knew the crew and their world a little better, he had told them that he was a nomad, or at least had been one before going into cold sleep, which explained most of his tension. That was, she suspected, why he was so eager to start learning waterbending: he was desperate to do_ something_ new.

She, on the other hand, was uncomfortable at the thought of visiting other people. Her initial display of bending power at the prison had gone down as an accident involving busted pipes, but her breakdown at St. Albans had made the rounds on the rumor mill as an attack by a demon. She sighed; first _freak_, now _blood-bathing demon_. She'd almost rather be called _whore._

Most of the crew understood that she wasn't a danger to them, but they _knew_ her — what might strangers think if they found that she was the demon from the Water Tribe?

What she had done to those people still terrified her if she thought about it too much. The way she had ended their lives by ripping the blood right from their veins... that wasn't supposed to be _possible_. Even her limited knowledge of waterbending seemed to indicate that she needed water on-hand, and Aang hadn't heard of anyone bending blood — and he came from a world where bending was _commonplace!_

What did it say about her, that she could?

"Are you okay?" Aang asked, pulling her from her reverie, looking concerned.

"I'm fine," she lied, and smiled.

* * *

"Cap'n says we've got a job," Toph said, tapping her feet nervously. Haru was rearranging the Infirmary, like always, and he turned to her.

"Well, that's good," he replied. "I'd like to get out of the ship, maybe eat some real food." His voice sounded like he was smiling, but she couldn't be certain unless she was touching him, and for some reason, the thought of going up and putting a hand to his face seemed a little... like a bad idea.

"Yeah, well, it's with Fanty and Mingo," she snapped, covering her anxiety with annoyance. "And let me tell you, they're obnoxious pricks from the bad side of Beaumond's bad side. Probably best you stay on the ship — they'd have _fun_ with a Core-hound like you," she said, and she felt him shift.

"Core-hound?" he asked, sounding slightly offended. "What's that mean?"

She shrugged carelessly. "Just means you're rich," she explained. "Hell, I'm a Core-hound, you wanna get technical about it, born on Ariel and all. But don't," she said suddenly, holding up her hands, "go to tellin' anyone else. They don't know. I'm pretty sure I've lied about never being to the Core, too," she added thoughtfully.

"How do they not know?" Haru asked incredulously. "You're a Bei Fong, I thought they were famous."

"Yeah, in the Core," she replied, like it was obvious. "Maybe Katara or Sparky would recognize the name, but they haven't heard it yet, and you better not tell 'em. I've killed people for less," she lied, and then realized that he probably wouldn't think it was one, unless he had an incredibly shining opinion of her.

"My lips are sealed," he said, and she felt him hold his hands up. "Why did you leave?" he asked, leaning against the counter. She made a face.

"You have to ask? Look at me, do I look like a Bei Fong?" She sighed, and leaned against the bed, mentally switching gears from _Toph_ to _Mistress Bei Fong_. "When the Lord and Lady Bei Fong decided to have a child, they pictured an angelic princess, all sweetness and light, who would grow up to be the perfect, demure socialite, who they could dress up and show off and marry off to some wealthy family, a daughter just like Lady Poppy Bei Fong who would do just what Lady Poppy Bei Fong had done.

"Instead," she said, shifting back into _Toph_, "they got me. When they figured out they had a blind daughter, they completely freaked, kept me under lockdown. I wasn't allowed to go _anywhere_ - not that I, you know, listened," she added, and grinned. "I snuck out all the time, my favorite place to go was the zoo - you know they have badgermoles at the New Gaoling zoo?" she laughed. "I got to know all of 'em, even talked the zookeeper into letting me in to pet 'em once. 'Course, my parents heard about that one," she muttered darkly. "They... shut down even more after that. They were so..." she started, biting her lip, trying to find the right word, "_scared_," she landed on finally. "They were scared of everything, treated me like a doll they had to protect. It got old."

"I can imagine," Haru mused, moving around the bed. "Did you try talking to them about it, at least? It seems rash, to just... abandon everything and become a mechanic."

"I tried," she replied, running a hand through her long hair. "I told 'em I was perfectly good to take care of myself, have a life of my own. They thought my "show of defiance" meant they weren't teaching me how to be a _real_ girl hard enough. They put a servant on to watch me twenty-four-seven," she snorted derisively, the memory still raw even after five years. "I couldn't even go to the bathroom alone, she had to be with me all the time, holding my hand like I was an invalid."

"That's... wow," Haru said, and he leaned against the bed next to her. "How'd you leave - and end up here? I've been wondering, but, well," he sighed, shifting like he was uncomfortable, "no one seems especially forthcoming about their pasts on this ship. It seems like everyone pretends they didn't exist before they joined."

"That's 'cause they do," she replied sagely. "I don't know much about Pipsqueak an' the Duke, just they've always worked together. I think the Duke is Pipsqueak's son, maybe? Or nephew, somethin' like that. I'm not sure, but they were here before me. I know the Cap'n and Bee served together in the war, and they were at Serenity Valley - " she heard him draw in a sharp breath. "Yeah," she said gravely. "They don't talk about it. I dunno, the ship is just... this whole thing, it's what people do when they got nothin' else, you know? I was in prison on Ariel, but I managed to sneak out and get to the docks when my guard fell asleep, and Jet was here and he was looking for a mechanic, and I'd never done it before but I bluffed my way through it, and well," she said, shrugging.

"You bluffed your way onto the ship?" he asked, and she could hear him smiling. She grinned.

"Yep. He got _so_ ticked when he found out I'd lied about all the experience I had fixin' ships," she said, laughing at the memory. "But I'm still the best mechanic in the 'Verse, I just don't have any trainin'. The real question," she continued, leaning forward a bit and tilting her head slightly, "is what _you're_ doing on the ship. We all got stories, reasons to be here," she said, "but you had this cushy life on Persephone. Why throw it away?"

She heard him take a deep breath and shift. "I... My family was pretty... bad," he said, wincing, "not bad like yours, but bad like... criminals," he explained finally, "bad criminals."

"Bad like 'so evil that Reavers tell stories of 'em to scare their kids into actin' right' or bad as in, 'they really suck at not getting caught'?"

"The second one," he said, laughing. "My father is still in prison on Londinium - yes, I'm from Londinium," he added, cutting her off before she could comment. She smirked; Londinium was only good for ponces and thieves. "Originally, at least. I left when I was seventeen, to pursue a career in medicine. Like you, I was... showing up my family."

"It's okay," she said brightly, "you can say you were flipping 'em the bird."

He laughed, and a little part of her felt warm at having made him laugh. "Well, that's how I ended up on Persephone. But... it never felt right," he sighed, running a hand through his hair. "But this ship... it... this sounds so stupid," he grumbled, "when I say it out loud."

"It was home," she said, reading between the lines.

"Yeah," he breathed. "It was just... home."

Mai rearranged her shuttle irritably - the little airbending brat had completely _ruined_ two of her tapestries, and now there were great big gashes in the red silk, showing the ugly metal beneath and throwing off the decor in a way that made her twitch. The boy was _not_ allowed in her shuttle anymore; if Katara wanted to pawn him off on someone so she could go have sex with Zuko, then she would have to find someone else to do it.

The door opened, and Mai swallowed a scream as her blood pressure spiked. "I seem to remember that there's a standing rule to knock before entering my shuttle," she growled before turning, already knowing it was Jet - he and the boy were the only ones who didn't knock, and the boy was too terrified of her at the moment to dare coming in here.

"Sorry," Jet replied insincerely, "I was just so eager to see your shining face."

She rolled her eyes. "What do you want?"

"Ooh, someone's in a bad mood - that Aang's fault?" he asked, pointing to the tears in her silken tapestries as he sat on her bench and propped his feet up on her low table. She glared at him. He _knew_ how much she hated that.

"Yes," she drawled, hitting his feet with one of her accent pillows. He grinned - she noticed that he hadn't shaved in a couple of days, and a tiny part of her whimpered just a little. She couldn't deny it; even though all of her clients were well-to-do, proper, and ultra-respectable, she had a_ thing_ for scruffy boys, and Jet wore scruff better than anyone she had ever met. "He was playing with... air marbles?" she shook her head and rolled her eyes.

"You keep doing that, your face'll get stuck that way," he said, chewing on his lip like he was craving a cigarette. He knew better than to smoke in her shuttle, though - the last time he had, she had pulled a knife and threatened to take his balls as compensation.

"You should really work on your nicotine addiction," she told him, and he rubbed the back of his head.

"I'm tryin' to quit," he replied sheepishly.

"You suppose the eighteenth time might be the charm?" she asked, raising an eyebrow, but internally she hoped that it might be. Jet already lived on the edge in so many ways - the last thing he needed was to add any other risks to his life into the mix. He shrugged and looked away, the way he always did when there was something he wanted to say but wasn't sure how to say it. "What's wrong?" she asked seriously, and he gave her a lopsided smile that made her stomach drop a fraction.

"How is it you can always tell when something's botherin' me?"

"You refuse to look me in the eye," she explained, making her bed to avoid looking at him and his grin and his _scruff_. "Also, you barge into my shuttle unannounced and make small talk," she added. He laughed.

"Yeah, I guess," he conceded, then sighed. "We got a job," he said abruptly, and she turned.

"I don't suppose it's on a somewhat decent planet where I might screen some respectable clients?" she asked, but he shook his head, all humor gone from his eyes. There was something hidden there, something she could probably discern if she looked hard enough. Instead, she turned back to her bed. "What sort of job?"

"Illegal sort," he said, shrugging, "not sure of the details yet. We're meeting with the clients, pair o' twins by the name of Fanty and Mingo, we've dealt with 'em once or twice."

"And I should care because?

He made a face. "They ain't exactly known for hanging around safe places, or safe people," he said seriously, "dunno what they and their friends'd do to a woman like you. It's probably best you stay on the ship."

"Are you trying to be noble again?" she asked coldly, but he didn't smile, instead staring at her with burning eyes.

"Maybe," he said quietly. "Just best if you make yourself kinda scarce."

"I have no intentions of leaving the ship unless there's something better for me off of it," she told him, and it was more true than she liked. She'd flirted with the idea of returning to Sihnon at some point relatively soon, but she couldn't bear the thought of leaving _Freedom_, even though she knew, deep down, that she had to eventually, for the same reason she had left Sihnon: the family history, the shaking in her hands, the words on the doctor's chart.

Mai's clock was running out, and pushing her further off the ship with every _tick_.


	3. Chapter Two: Interrupted Signals

On_ Freedom_

The job was weak tea, stealing some coin off a Blue Sun outpost on Lilac, but since Jet had Aang on board, he had to step lightly, and hungry as his crew was, he couldn't afford to turn down a job just 'cause it didn't pay enough. It had taken a bit of fast talking to convince Fanty and Mingo that it wasn't _his_ ship the Alliance was itching to catch for being involved in the Water Tribe's Independent Uprising (he winced when he heard it called that) so they would agree to deal.

Lucky for everyone, all the Alliance knew for sure was that a Firefly had been involved, and there were enough of those still flying around that he could play dumb and probably get away with it.

Jet didn't expect trouble on such an easy job, but jobs had a habit of going sideways at random and Lilac was close to Reaver territory, so it paid to be prepared. He was forcing Toph to come with them even though she didn't want to, because he'd need her range of "vision" to make sure that no one was coming their way. She'd saved them on more than one occasion by giving them early warning, but she never liked doing it when the possibility of Reavers entered anywhere into the equation; it seemed they were the only thing that really _scared_ her, and even more than they scared the rest of the crew — which was _saying_ something.

"Grenades?" Pipsqueak asked from the hall, and Jet heard the Duke mutter something in response. "We don't need _grenades_."

"No," the Duke replied sourly, "_you_ don't need grenades. This close to Reaver space, I go in_ fully armed_, or _not at all_."

"Cap'n," Pipsqueak said, walking into the dining room, "tell this idiot he don't need grenades."

Jet shrugged. "S'long as they don't go off and kill us all, I don't ca — okay, you don't need _that_ many grenades." The Duke looked like a missile in the process of blowing up, dressed head-to-toe in fragments of old armor, dripping with spare magazines, three whole belts of ammunition (one for a weapon that Jet was pretty sure he didn't have), and at least a dozen grenades strapped all over his body. He scowled.

"Says you," he replied, trying to cross his arms but failing because his piecemeal armor and bullets were in the way. Jet rolled his eyes.

"Lose some o' that — _lots_ o' that," he said, waving his rifle carelessly. "You gotta be able to move."

"You and Toph might not even need us, right?" Pipsqueak asked, joining him at the table and loading up his weapons, both of them ignoring the Duke's surly grumbles as he dislodged himself from the nest of ammo and kevlar. "It ain't like we're stealing a dragon's horde here." Jet waved him off.

"Safety in numbers, Pipsqueak," he said sagely, filling a fourth magazine for his pistol and considering a fifth. "I'd take Bee and Longshot, but we gotta have someone guarding the ship and manning the helm in case something goes south, and — now don't be broken up over this — but I don't exactly trust the Duke with runnin' my ship while I ain't on it."

"Ah, come on," Pipsqueak said, in mock offense. "A monkey could handle the ship easy, it'd be a nice challenge for the Duke."

It was hard to tell under the _clunks_ of metal hitting the floor, but Jet was pretty sure he heard the younger gun-hand mutter_ I hate you all_. He smirked.

"Nah," he replied, shaking his head. "Let Bee and Longshot take care of it. 'Sides, I think the Duke'd be terribly disappointed if he got all dressed up and had nowhere to go."

The Duke's grousing raised in pitch and got more articulate. "I can hear you, assholes," he snapped, and Jet gasped theatrically.

"Ah, damn, I'm sorry. I figured your teenage angst was cloggin' up your ears." Before the Duke could come up with a response, Jet went on. "We're about to be dockin'. Where's our little blind maniac?"

"Right here," Toph grumbled, shuffling in from the direction of the engine room, hair askew. "How long till we land?" she asked hoarsely, stifling a yawn, right before the ship touched down. "Oh," she said. "Well, then, I'll get ready."

"Hurry up," Jet shouted as she shuffled back out of the room. "We only got a short window to do this in!"

"Yeah, yeah," she replied, with a dismissing wave of her hand. Only a minute later, she returned, tugging an oversized t-shirt on over her usual top (that itself barely cvered her), a knife between her teeth and one of Jet's pistols in her hand. "Ready," she mumbled, stuffing the knife into her belt. It was longer than the shorts she had on.

(The Duke's constant mutters ground to a halt.)

"Uh, Toph?" Jet asked, raising an eyebrow.

"What?" she replied, strapping a gunbelt to her thigh and putting several magazines in. "This was the first thing I grabbed and you said it was summer on this planet, so I don't care. How far away is this station?" she asked, breezing away from the topic. "I can't feel it."

"A good mile east of here," Jet replied, deciding not to push Toph on the clothing issue. "They got plenty of surveillance set up, and we don't want 'em finding the ship too easy."

"No," Toph countered, crossing her arms. "Longshot's gotta keep the ship in a half-mile of me or I can't watch out for it."

"A mile's as close as we get," he replied, "and that's final. C'mon."

"I don't like this, Cap'n," she said fervently.

"None of us like this," he replied, and went on, cutting off the Duke's comment that he liked everything about this job all of a sudden, "but we do the jobs we can get, _dong ma?_"

* * *

Sokka had graciously taken the helm to allow Longshot and Bee to have some time to themselves. He hadn't especially _wanted_ to, but he was the only person with any piloting experience other than Longshot, so it fell to him to warm the pilot seat and keep an eye out in case something went horribly wrong and Jet needed to be saved. Suki was sitting with him, and they were playing a completely non-rousing game of _pai sho_ on the counterspace.

He was losing, and badly.

In the recesses of the ship, someone let out a shout, followed closely by a semi-masculine shriek, and then Aang flew onto the bridge, eyes wide. "I forgot to knock," he said, steadily turning redder and redder. "Mai was taking a sponge bath."

"Awesome," Sokka replied, twirling his lotus tile. "You see anything?"

Suki kicked him lightly, rolling her eyes. "You'll have to apologize to her," she said, and Sokka held up a hand.

"Suki, Suki, look," he countered, placing a hand on her thigh, which she glanced at before shooting him a warning look. He ignored it and went on. "You were never a teenage boy, so I forgive you for not knowing this. See, our young Avatar has just had his first experience with a naked woman. You mustn't rush things, this is an important development in his life. Now, Aang," he continued, turning to the now-bright red twelve-year-old, "how much _did_ you see? This is a big moment, so you should try to — ow!" He turned to see where the protein bar that had just belted him across the temple had come from. Mai was standing on the stairs, wrapped in a bathrobe, scowling.

"How many times have I told you that you aren't allowed in my shuttle?" she asked dangerously, arms crossed, and Aang turned his one-two punch of puppy-dog eyes and a sheepish grin onto her, like either would actually work on Mai.

"We were playing hide-and-seek," he mumbled. "I thought no one would look for me there."

While Suki was busy laughing, he surreptitiously switched a few of the tiles around, so he wasn't losing quite so badly. Unfortunately, she saw him. "Hey!" she cried overdramatically. "Cheater! Aang, Sokka's trying to cheat!"

"Oh, no, whatever will you do," Mai droned, still scowling at Aang, who looked relieved that the subject was changing.

"Sokka!" Aang admonished, rushing away from the still-dripping Mai, but the grin fell off his face suddenly. "What is that?" he asked, pointing at the screen.

"Oh, it's a — " Sokka started to explain, and then froze at the shape on the radar, "that's a ship," he said dumbly. "Coming for — " he muttered, staring blankly as it took clearer form. "That's a ship — a — oh _cào_," he hissed. "That's a _Reaver_ ship."

* * *

At Blue Sun Outpost 6519 on Lilac

Toph's communicator let out a loud burst of garbled static that made them all jump. She cursed under her breath and hit the _off_ button hastily, tapping her foot against the ground to see if anyone was coming, and then her communicator to see if it was broken. It wasn't — then why had it just buzzed her? Sokka _knew_ he wasn't supposed to contact them on this job... unless it was something bad enough that he thought it was worth getting caught over, a narrow window that left her heart dropping heavily into her stomach.

"What the ruttin' hell is going on?" Jet hissed, and Toph shook her head, shaking in her fingers.

"It's not broken," she said. "Jet, something's _wrong_."

"Damn right something's wrong," he snapped. "Your _fèi wù_ communicator is what's wrong!"

"If I say it isn't broken," she replied in a low voice, teeth clenched, "it_ isn't_ broken. So something's wrong on Sokka's end, and I was up to my elbows in the helm not three days ago and _everything_ was shiny. Something's_ wrong_," she repeated, slamming her communicator into Jet's hand. A tense silence fell, lasting for around three seconds, before Jet growled and turned it back on.

"Freedom, this is Jet, what the hell is going on?" he hissed shortly. Not a second later, static again burst through it, followed by Sokka's strained voice, broken by grainy white noise — an interrupted signal, she thought distantly. Something was messing with the transmission.

"Reavers," he gasped, and she was the only one who didn't react, "we're — air alre — y, they — hind us."

Jet didn't say anything else, but tossed the communicator at her and let out a burst of fire on full-auto at the ground. Toph yelped and jumped backward at the impact, as several people came running and yells echoed through the concrete walls; the sensory overload reverberated through her ears and bones, leaving her a little further disconnected from the situation. "You got Reavers incoming," Jet was shouting, "so you best find a place to hide. Crew, outside, now!" he barked, and took off running as the confused Blue Sun men let out yells, some running away from them and others following them, disbelieving.

Her perception slid back into focus and she began to _move,_ at something greater than a run, propelled by animal fear pounding in her blood and in her head. A crawling prophecy began to form as the numbers worked themselves out without stopping to from full words: over a mile from the ship, only vehicle a hovercraft sixty feet away, could only push 30 miles an hour tops, take two minutes to get to the ship if you ignore acceleration, can't ignore acceleration or time to get to the mule or time to get _on_to the mule, so give it more like ten or fifteen minutes to get to the ship, Reaver gunships clear five hundred miles an hour.

The knowledge burrowed into her bones and coiled into a spring in her stomach: they wouldn't make it to the ship before the Reavers made it to them.

They hit the doors at dead run and sprinted for the mule, crashing inside and scrabbling over each other as they all tried to turn it on and get it moving, which wasted a precious ten seconds before Jet took over and began pushing her toward the ship — right before _Freedom_ passed overhead, engines screaming, followed immediately by the high-frequency whine and low, pounding bass of the Reavers' gunship. Toph counted the seconds as they moved, as the noises shifted and distorted; the gunship had spotted them, and was leaving Freedom to chase them: the smaller, slower, and easier target.

Jet cursed violently and whipped the mule around to follow _Freedom_, even as the spring wound into Toph's body said it was useless. Static crackled over her communicator, lost in a strange, loud, ominous _hum_. "EMP!" she shouted, and he jerked the mule aside violently as the pulse split the air where they had been seconds before.

Longshot's voice, broken in the crackle of white noise in her communicator: " — off the — ains," he said, "take her — ills, we're — rn swal —"

"Okay," she replied, feeling both completely removed from the mule and completely aware of everything else around her. She tried to re-center herself, mentally putting together the fragments of the message. "Jet, hills, barn swallow," she translated as the next EMP shot struck so close that she felt it _thrum_ through the air beside them, changing the pressure so that her perception shuddered.

Reaver ships had a special sound to them, a special taste they left in the air, the way they rattled and shook and roared like a monster shaking its cage, about to come out of its skin. The monster growled behind them, too close, and Jet turned the mule sharply so that they skimmed a cliff face; rock shuddered to her left as the Reavers skimmed the cliff much closer than they did.

_Freedom_ sang to them from above, coming around to pick them up as they rocketed haphazardly through the hills. _Too late_, Toph thought. It was too late. The Reavers were too close: even if they got onto _Freedom_, she'd never be able to get away from the gunship.

But it seemed like she was the only one who realized it; the Duke and Pipsqueak were steadily, uselessly, shooting at the Reaver ship, trying to keep them from getting a lock on them, Jet was flying like a maniac, and she was still sitting half-frozen in the passenger seat. She jolted at the sudden realization, and shook her head hard to clear the catatonic fear out of it — they might be dead in the water, but she was Toph Bei Fong, and she didn't take _anything_ lying down. _Not anything_, she told herself. Not even Reavers.

She snatched Jet's machine gun and checked its magazine — three-quarters full — then turned and unloaded it at the gunship. Under the roar of engines and guns and wind, she focused on the sound of bullets striking metal, and used it to gauge the size of the ship — a large one, about a half-step smaller than _Freedom_. Raiding party. Heavy frontward artillery, multiple exits: they'd do better to get _under_ it than try to outrun it.

Toph opened her mouth to yell this, got halfway through the sentence ("Jet, it can't hit — ") and then it hit her, the focus she'd been forcing onto the mule blinding her to the surroundings.

The harpoon went in smooth just by her spine and opened once it had gone all the way through her abdomen; a scream louder than the jet engines tore out of her throat as it wrenched her backwards, and her hands floundered against the seats and walls, trying to hold onto anything that wouldn't go with her.

For one white-hot moment, the world stopped and her senses lit up brilliantly, so she was acutely aware of _everything_: Jet, one hand on the wheel and another holding her arm in a slipping grip —

— the Duke, mouth open in a snarling curse, with one hand shoving a grenade into its launcher and another holding her shirt in a slipping grip —

— Pipsqueak, jaw locked, with one hand on the trigger of his most powerful gun and another grasping her waist in a vice-like grip just under the scalding bolt of the harpoon —

— spare magazines scattered around the floor of the mule, bullets slipping out of place and dancing around their feet —

— hundreds of tiny metal casings and thousands of shifting grains of powder, singing in static as they bounced against the floor —

— her communicator firing bursts of garbled voices —

— the heartbeat of the Reaver ship, pounding through the cable drawing her in —

— the smell of ozone from the EMP —

— the taste of blood —

* * *

Everything was chaos as they all tried to keep Toph on the mule and break the cable that was pulling her towards the gunship — it was the Duke, pulling Toph's knife from her belt and hacking madly, who actually succeeded, and she fell, motionless, over Pipsqueak's lap.

_Freedom_ rose up in front of them, cargo bay doors wide open, and Jet wrenched the little hovercraft upwards to meet her; they hit it with an awful _screech_ and_ crash_, chased forward by the top of the Reaver ship, that hadn't been able to pull up or down fast enough to either hit or avoid them.

They leaped out of the mule before it had even stopped moving, Pipsqueak dragging Toph's limp form roughly along with him. Jet hit the ground and rolled to the side of the cargo bay, arms over his head, as the mule and the jagged sheet of metal from the gunship crashed hard into the far wall and finally stilled. The bay doors closed behind them and they rose away from Lilac in a sudden, deathly silence.

"Get the doctor," Pipsqueak shouted, and he saw Katara on the catwalk, face going white as he hoisted Toph into his arms. Jet ran forward, mouth dry — she was so _tiny_ in the mercenary's arms. She carried herself so big and bad and dangerous, but without her boastful attitude puffing her up, she was just a little twenty-something in a shirt three sizes too big for her.

And she was his _mechanic_, dammit, the best mechanic in the 'Verse, and she couldn't — she wouldn't —

Haru took one look at her, and his face went blank and still as Pipsqueak carried her into the infirmary, flanked by Jet and joined by Katara. They laid her on the bed, on her side so as not to disturb the giant spear that was going straight through her, while Katara began rifling through the supplies and Haru washed his hands and pulled on a pair of surgical gloves with deliberate, mechanical motions. "Morphine," he said shortly, and she tossed him a vial before pausing, looking at the tap, and whirling around.

"If you can get that out of her," she said quietly, "I think I can heal her. Maybe. I can help," she added, voice catching.

"Just hold her still while I remove it," he replied, and she bolted over to hold Toph steady. Haru worked slowly to remove the harpoon, _painfully_ slow — to make sure, Jet realized, that it was leaving in the _exact_ same path it had gone in. As soon as he had it out of her, he threw it aside carelessly and looked up at Katara, calm in the way that only a surgeon could be. "Can you heal any part of this?" he asked, voice barely above a whisper.

"I can try," Katara replied, and pulled water from the tap without touching it, which she held to Toph's back so that it glowed brilliantly, casting loud shadows against the walls. "I think it's helping," she said softly, while Haru started putting metal implements around the wound.

"I'm going to need suction," he declared, without looking up. Jet shook his head.

"It's a standard infirmary," Jet replied desperately, "we don't have anything that — " and then Katara swept a hand over the wound, pulling some of the free blood out of it and throwing it into the sink abruptly.

"That works," Haru said evenly, and then looked up. "Jet, get him out of here," he ordered in that same even tone, and he and Pipsqueak turned to see Aang, pale and wide-eyed, at the doorway.

"Aang," Pipsqueak said, walking forward and reaching out to him but stopping at the sight of blood on his hands. "C'mon, you've gotta go."

"Will she be okay?" Aang asked, and he might have been imagining it, but his voice wasn't quite_ normal_ — it was like he was holding back something _huge_. Jet didn't know if Haru could save Toph, but he _did_ know that Aang was close to Toph and when Aang got mad or distressed, bad things happened — things like a whirlwind that ripped up his infirmary or a cyclone that killed almost ten thousand men.

"Yes," Jet answered firmly, steering Aang out of the room. "Doc's good at his job, he'll take care of her, and plus he's got a healer with him. She'll be right as rain in a coupla days."

He couldn't make it sound like anything but a lie.


	4. Chapter Three: Reputation

At Blue Sun Outpost 6519 on Lilac

"Jet, don't you think this is a little... morbid?" Pipsqueak asked, and he sighed through clenched teeth.

"Look, I don't wanna do this, but we can't go back empty-handed. Don't get paid if you don't get the goods," he replied darkly, rifling through the outpost's pathetic bank; they'd come back at night, after hiding out in a canyon until they were sure the Reavers had gone, returning to finish the job in the dead of night. He'd contacted Fanty and Mingo earlier with the news that they'd been hit by Reavers but no one was dead (yet) and they'd still get the job done.

Because that was Jet's reputation: Jet got the job done, period.

Without Toph to break the locks, he'd been forced to forget about subtlety altogether and shoot them off. He'd used a lot more ammo than he could really afford, but once his finger had hit the trigger, it was like he couldn't pry it away till his gun was empty. It had alerted the one lonely security guard left on duty — his coworkers must've gone home to bury their families after the Reaver attack — but Bee had knocked him out with her trusty chokehold before Jet could reload, and re-empty, his machine gun.

_That's too much fire for this_, Bee had told him, _there's no call for an automatic_. She was right — the job sure as hell didn't need that kind of artillery — but she was wrong, too, because _Jet_ needed that kind of artillery, something that would make enough noise to block out the echo of Toph screaming in his head.

It didn't matter, none of it mattered. They just had to get the cargo and get gone, do the job and get back to Beaumonde and get paid. Do the job, just — just do the job.

Never mind that one of his crew was laid up with a hole going straight through her, never mind that he still had the top bits of a Reaver ship scraping around in his cargo bay, never mind that none of them had any sleep, never mind that the Avatar had fallen into their laps and no one knew what to do with him, never mind that the Alliance was on the hunt, never mind that another war was brewing and it was all their fault, never mind that all they had left to eat were two protein bars and a box of raisins, never mind — never mind.

Never mind.

Do the job.

It was Jet's reputation: Jet got the job done._ Period_.

* * *

On _Freedom_

"How is she?" Mai asked, slipping into the door like a ghost. Jet looked up.

"Same, mostly," he replied gruffly. "Ship's falling apart and my mechanic had to go and get herself — " he cut himself off with a sneer. He kept _trying_ to be mad at Toph, 'cause if he got mad at her he wouldn't have to be scared, and Jet didn't get scared over his caustic mechanic. Of course, Mai saw right through him. Even on a good day, he'd have to get up _real_ early to fool Mai anyhow, but it wasn't like he was making a convincing job of it to anyone tonight, not even himself.

"She's strong," she said quietly, leaning against the counter beside him. This close, he could see she'd been trying to sleep, hair a bit out of place and shadows under eyes already smudged with old makeup, but she must not have been having any more luck than the rest of them. Toph's situation had the whole ship on-edge — even the always-cheerful Aang was silent and antsy, sitting in the cargo bay the last time Jet had seen him, making tornadoes in his hands and ignoring the rest of the world.

"Takes more'n _strong_ to survive a harpoon to the stomach," he growled, running a hand through his hair. "Doc says she needs better antibiotics than what we got."

"And?" she prompted. He ran his hand over his face, sweat-streaked and dusty; but he was too tired and his head was too heavy to go about cleaning up just yet.

"Fanty and Mingo only paid a quarter up front for the Lilac job," he explained without looking at either of the women in the room, "only got us enough fuel to get there and back... we can't get that kinda medicine _and_ get back to Beaumonde."

"But if she goes septic," Mai continued for him, "she'll be dead before we get there."

"And I can't just let her die," he finished. "Even if she wasn't one o' my crew — Toph's all that keeps this ship runnin' most days."

"I know," she said sardonically, "she complains about it enough."

Jet smirked, fonder than he wanted to be. "Yeah, but you know the secret?" he asked, leaning in conspiratorially. "She_ likes_ it that way. Makes her feel important, gives her somethin' to be proud of." The smirk fell off his face as he watched Toph, laying still as death on the bed, and his gut twisted uncomfortably.

Toph was one of his crew, and that was more important than how good a mechanic she was. She was one of _his_, and he _always_ looked out for his own.

She needed the medication — and fast, before she was too sick for it to work — but none of them had the money to get it; the only people who might've been rich enough to do it (Mai or Katara or Zuko) had all their accounts frozen or crashed outright now that they were outlaws like the rest of them.

All of that left one option: get more money, and get it now.

"So what are you going to do?" Mai asked, in that almost-challenging tone that Bee used sometimes, to snap him out of whatever world he was lost in, bring him back to reality.

"Ezra's not far from here — way the systems are right now, it's a lot closer'n Beaumonde," he replied, sighing again. "I've heard of a lady, operates out of Ezra's sky, she's always got some job opening."

"What's the catch?"

He shot her a wry smile — just like Mai, only person in the 'verse more cynical than him. In this part of the black, her practicality and glass-half-empty attitude were two of her greatest strengths. "She ain't exactly known for being overly friendly, or 'specially sane."

"I'm sure her gold glitters exactly like everyone else's does," Mai said, and he leaned heavily against the counter.

"And we can't do without it," he muttered, and then glanced at her. "You know you still owe us for springin' Katara, right?" he said, partly to change the subject but mostly in the vague hope that she'd emptied her accounts in time and had somehow just forgotten about it.

Mai scowled and stepped forward, smoothing Toph's hair, probably more to occupy her hands than anything else. He noticed that she was shaking, and it surprised him — did Mai really care about Toph that much? He'd never pegged her for the sentimental type.

"My accounts are still frozen," she said, and only the slightest change in tone told him that she was _pissed_ about that. "I didn't expect it to take this long to — " she cut herself off and changed tacks before she said anything else in that line of thought, "I'm completely out of money right now," she said in a soft voice, and it occurred to him that this was probably the first time in her whole life that that sentence had ever been true.

It should have felt good, seeing the disgustingly wealthy Fire Nation noblewoman-turned-Companion completely broke, but it didn't. He didn't want to think about why.

"I know you're good for it," he said, shrugging. "Just don't wanna forget."

"I won't," she replied coolly, and they stood together in the silence, watching Toph's ragged, shallow breathing.

* * *

In orbit around the planet Ezra

Jet was _all_ kinds of unhappy about this.

The only way to get into the skyplex was with a shuttle, since Hama was a paranoid old woman and would shoot ships right out of the black if they were anything bigger than a standard short-range; that meant he could only bring a couple of people on board with him, since shuttles weren't really supposed to hold more than four. Bee was a shoo-in, and with Toph and her lie-detecting skills out, it fell to the next best thing: Longshot, who was usually good at picking up on subtle tells. He didn't dare bring more, since he needed Hama too bad to risk pissing her off.

He'd heard rumors — everyone on this side of the system had — about the kinds of things Hama did if someone wronged her, things that left him on-edge as he walked through the halls, flanked by Bee and Longshot, all three of them with guns at their backs.

The door to Hama's office opened and he found himself staring into a tattoo — which he belatedly realized was attached to a face on a man so big he dwarfed Pipsqueak — and he only j_ust_ managed to keep a startled yell in his throat. He was dressed like an old-timey _gladiator_, too much muscle and not enough clothes, and Jet idly wondered what terribly embarrassing secret he was hiding under all that testosterone.

"Crow, let them in," a creaky female voice said, and the giant man stepped aside. The old woman was lounging in her chair and carving up a fruit with a little paring knife, and she might've seemed harmless if it wasn't for how_ intent_ she was on digging that knife into the fruit, like it had personally offended her. "Don't mind him," Hama assured them. "He thinks it sets the atmosphere when he stands at the door and says _boo_."

She waved the big man off and walked around the desk, peering at them intently. "Jonathan Reynolds," she mused, pulling a large, bright orange wedge out of the fruit. "I've heard quite a bit about you. What brings you out my way?" she asked lightly.

"Heard you had a job," he said firmly, and she nodded.

"Of course, I always do. Today, it's a train job," she told him, biting into the fruit. "There is cargo on the train that I want. I will pay you half today, and half when you deliver my cargo to Crow tomorrow evening. Sound reasonable?"

"Sure," he replied quickly, lusting over the mango. He'd had nothing but rationed protein for two months; the thought of fresh fruit made his insides ache.

"You're not asking what the cargo is?" she asked, watching him carefully. He shook his head, and she smiled tightly. "I've heard good things about you, Captain Reynolds," she said, "but I generally don't hold stock in rumors. Tell me, why should I pay you?"

Taken off-guard, the only response he could come up with was: "'Cause we need the money, bad as you get." Instead of trying to backtrack, he plunged forward, banking on his reputation as a mercenary who'd do anything for the right price. He didn't figure Hama as the sort to answer to flattery, anyway. "Ain't got enough to make it any other place and I got someone who'll die if we don't get cash for meds quick."

She smiled. "Good, good. I like dealing with desperate men, less in the way of surprises. However, I have heard a few... other things about you," she said delicately, "that make me think I need to make a few things _nice_ and clear before we can agree to a deal. Crow." She nodded to the big man, who slid a panel on the wall aside to reveal a window to another room, where an unfamiliar white-haired woman was strung up by her wrists, blood on her arms and sprinkled in her hair.

Hama waved her hand towards the woman, who convulsed like she'd been struck by lightning, her scream silent through the walls. "Now, I believe you when you say you're desperate, but I've known desperate men to grow ideals after getting paid," she explained in a low voice. "I trust we won't have any trouble with that kind of nonsense, will we?" Half-ignored, the woman's muffled screams broke down into sobs.

He clenched his jaw tight and swallowed the desire to pull out a gun and play the hero he couldn't be anymore. "No, ma'am," he answered, and was surprised at the confidence in his voice. "Got rid o' all my ideals some years back."

"You would be amazed," Hama said softly, leaning against the window, "at how hard those are to kill. Look at you now! All fired up with righteous indignation," she cried, each syllable hard and low with something like mockery. "Seven penniless years out of the war and you still think the world works in black and white. You're good and just, they're evil and cruel. Am I wrong?" He didn't answer, but she took his silence as one anyhow. "How hypocritcal... but then," she added, louder, shrugging, "I hardly have room to talk, do I? We may be evil people — " he flinched at the inclusion " — but at least we're _fair_, that's how I see it. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, you scratch my back, I scratch yours. I like what I've seen and heard about you, Jonathan Reynolds. I believe we're cut out of the same cloth."

He didn't dare open his mouth to speak. Even if he could form proper words, they'd only get them all killed, and — no matter what Hama was — he still needed the money too bad to fight for someone else.

"You think I shouldn't kill her, don't you?" Hama asked, leaning forward. When he didn't reply, she prompted him: "Go on, that's not a trick question. You don't. You can say it."

"I'm sure she's a very bad woman," he replied tightly, and after a moment of searching his face, Hama smiled like he'd said just the right thing, then stood up straighter and walked over to her desk.

"Enough about us," she declared brightly. "Let's talk about the job." She laid an old-fashioned paper map on her desk, pointing to two towns connected by a red line someone had highlighted before. "The train runs from Hancock to Paradiso," she explained, tracing the line. "You get on the train at Hancock, and have the cargo off the train by the time it reaches Paradiso. Take it to this place," she continued, tracing another line from Paradiso into the wilderness, "where you will hand it off to Crow and receive the rest of your pay. Nice and straightforward."

"I like straightforward," Jet replied, staring at the map and swallowing hard in an effort to get the taste of blood out of his mouth. "This a civilian train, yeah?"

"Correct," she answered breezily, and Longshot shifted in his peripheral vision — _lie_. "Here are your tickets," she continued, pulling out an envelope and placing the tickets and a sheaf of credits into it, sending a jolt of nauseating greed down his spine, "one for you and one other passenger. I suggest you come up with a good reason to be on that train, in case something goes wrong. If you're captured, we've never met.

"Also," she explained benevolently, as she sealed the envelope and handed it over to him, "the first half of your payment, and — because I like you so much — I'm adding a little extra so you can get a day or two's doses of the medicine you need to save whoever needs saving. I'm not heartless, after all," she added with a smile. He wanted to throw it back at her, but he wouldn't be here at all if he had the luxury of refusing charity, even if it was only offered to seal her deal and put him in her debt. "The train leaves tomorrow morning at 0700 on the nose. I trust you can take care of the details."

She dismissed them with a wave of her hand, and Crow opened the door to let them out. He glanced at Longshot, who was staring passively ahead, and at Bee, who was peering at a bookshelf intently like she was _real_ interested in reading the titles — if either of them had something to say to Hama (or to him), they were keeping it locked up tight.

"Pleasure doing business with you," he said in that same confident voice. Hama smiled again, and raised her mango in a mock toast.


	5. Chapter Four: Cloth

On _Freedom_

Aang shuffled into the cargo bay to see the Duke tinkering with a remote, right before the bottom of the cargo bay lifted up. "What are you doing?" he asked, and the young mercenary shrugged.

"Crime," he replied. Aang raised an eyebrow.

"Crime," he repeated, and the Duke nodded.

"Yup," he said, like it was nothing, "a train job. They have trains where you come from?" he asked, and then answered his own question. "Prob'ly not. They're sorta like these ships," he explained, indicating to Freedom, "'cept they're stuck to the ground and don't move so fast. Jet and Bee are already on."

"Will this... hurt anyone?" he asked hesitantly. He knew Jet didn't exactly have a clean record, but hearing the Duke's matter-of-fact explanation still threw him off.

"Nah," he replied, waving a hand, "we're just takin' some cargo off."

"Oh," he said, and pursed his lips, "that's... good, then."

"What, you got a problem with us bein' bad guys?" he asked, sounding almost offended, and then shrugged. "Out here, there ain't so many legal jobs left. We do what we gotta do so we can eat. S'okay, Jet don't ever pick up jobs that are _supposed_ to hurt nobody. Sometimes, things get hairy and you can't help it," he added, shrugging again, "but usually we're just stealin' some shiny or transportin' some cargo under the Alliance's noses. Once, we had to transport a whole herd of _cows_," he said, wincing. "That was fun."

"Why?" he asked, perching on an empty box. "What did they want with the cows?"

The Duke made a face. "I think they were dairy — most of 'em were girls, not, uh... steers? Hey, Pipsqueak," he asked, as the mercenary came in, dressed in a harness and a pair of goggles, "what d'you call boy cows?"

"Bulls," Pipsqueak replied, and the Duke nodded.

"Right," he said. "Bulls're mostly used for meat, but the girl cows ain't, they get milked and bred. The man shipping 'em just didn't want the Alliance knowin' how many he had, so he got us to move 'em from his planet to another one."

"'Girl cows' is redundant," Pipsqueak mumbled, a hat stuffed between his teeth, as he tightened the harness. Aang tilted his head.

"What's your job in the... crime?" he asked, wincing at the word. Pipsqueak glanced at him.

"I get to jump on the _moving train_," he answered tensely. The Duke grinned.

"He gets the_ fun_ job," he explained, and then pressed a few buttons so that the bottom of the ship opened up and Aang could see the ground rushing by underneath them. He closed his eyes and the wind swept in over him, but he couldn't really enjoy it, mind stuck on his friend in the Infirmary, hooked up to a bag of what Haru called "antibiotics" that was supposed to help — but he didn't know if he trusted those little bags to save her.

He'd offered to find some of the herbs he'd learned about at the Air Temple, and make up a poultice that he'd seen cure someone who'd been gored by a komodo-rhino after their skin had started going black, but Haru had refused, dismissing him outright with a roll of his eyes, and Katara had explained that they weren't in any position to get those herbs. She, at least, had thanked him for the offer and suggested that they find some at the next stop, even telling him that she'd like to learn his healing techniques, but he thought she might have been trying to make him feel better.

He hated feeling useless when people he cared about were hurting. Haru didn't get it, probably hadn't felt useless in his whole life, but Katara understood, and she was on his side, helping him think of ways to make Toph feel better when she woke up. Neither of them had come up with any really good ideas yet, but the effort was nice.

The Duke kept talking, shouting over the noise, "Cap'n and Bee are in the train, and they'll open up the top o' the compartment with the cargo in it, Pipsqueak jumps down into the train, then we haul all the cargo, plus the Cap'n and Bee, right back up here. Easy."

"Have you ever done this before?" Aang asked absently as the Duke hooked Pipsqueak up to a metal cable running into the roof of the cargo bay, breathing easier in his element and letting it carry away some of the weight on his shoulders, if only for a few minutes.

"Nope," the Duke replied matter-of-factly, "but it should work."

"Speak for yourself," Pipsqueak said, and then appeared to be praying for a moment. He looked at them. "Wish me luck," he said, and the Duke waved him off.

"Good luck!" Aang yelled as Pipsqueak jumped onto the train.

* * *

"Scrolls?" Jet asked, glancing at Bee, who nodded. "What kinda scrolls?"

"I don't know, sir," she replied, looking up and down the train car. "They were old, that's for sure. All stacked up nice an' pretty on the top two shelves."

"Huh," he grunted, thinking hard about that, why Hama might keep a bunch of ancient scrolls in her office. It didn't fit — Hama, the historian? No, they were missing something here. But he didn't have time right now to think about anything but the job. "Well, we'll figure it out later," he said quietly, "Longshot said he'd be pulling over the train at — " he paused as someone passed them, coughing violently, " — at 0750 on the nose, we're running low on time. Let's get started."

"Yes, sir," Bee replied, and stood up, shouldering the bag of smoke bombs, rope, and power tools they had packed into clever hiding places that wouldn't show on the X-ray screener, one of Bee's ideas that had, like most things that came out her bag of tricks, worked beautifully. She followed him to the end of the car (which seemed full of sick folks, all coughing and sniffling) and into the next one — where they both froze, looking a batallion of purple-bellies in the face.

Jet blinked. "Hey," he said jovially, smiling and mentally preparing a speech about _this isn't where I parked my ship_, when the other side opened and a small family shuffled through, so they took a leaf out of their book and passed straight through the compartment, nodding friendly-like at them as they passed and the oldest stifled a cough. Once on the other side, into the compartment they were supposed to find the cargo in, he looked at Bee. "I like this job better already," he muttered, grinning cheekily, and she gave him one of her _looks_, the tried-and-true _you're not funny_ glare.

"You're not even a_ little_ worried about the car full of Alliance men?" she asked, and he shrugged.

"Are you kidding?" he replied, while they set a smoke bomb to go off if the door opened. "Look, we're robbing a train — you have any idea how long I've wanted to do that? Jesse James was my _hero_ when I was a kid. And! We get to do it while makin' the Alliance look like a buncha bumblin' fools! This is the best job ever," he said, grinning, trying too hard to fake cheerful. If Bee noticed — and he was sure she did — she let it slide. "Hell, I'd do it for free."

"Wonderful," Bee said, checking for the right cargo while he began unscrewing the top of the compartment. "I'll take your share, then. Me and Longshot been wantin' a good beach vacation, your generosity is really gonna help make that happen."

"You're hilarious," he drawled, catching a screw and throwing it at her. "A real bucket o' laughs."

"Hey, you said you'd do it for free. You don't get take-backs on that kinda thing," she muttered absently, pulling aside a tarp that covered a set of boxes. "Here's the cargo."

"Shiny," he replied. "Help me get this — " he grunted as the top of the train car fell into his hands and he almost fell over under the sudden weight. Bee came over to help him move it aside, and not three seconds later, Pipsqueak rolled into the train car, breathing heavily and glaring at them for no readily apparent reason. He unhooked the harness from Pipsqueak's back and hooked it to the netting that Bee was wrapping around the apparently-rather-light cargo.

Only a minute and a half or so later, all three of them were rising back up into the ship again, no one on the train any the wiser.

The shiniest job they'd ever run. He was too proud to really stop and appreciate the irony: the one job he'd almost refused and all-but openly sabotaged at least three times through the planning process was the first one they'd run in over a year to go off without a hitch. Just more proof that karma didn't exist.

Back in the ship, they unhooked the cargo and Bee caught him by the arm. "You think anyone down there might've ID-ed us?" she asked seriously, and he shrugged.

"Dunno," he replied airily. "Not too worried either way. We never run jobs on this system anyhow." Bee didn't seem to share his optimism, but he ignored her and turned to the comm. "Longshot," he said into the comm, "we're on, take us to the meeting point."

"What did we steal?" Aang asked, hopping off a tower of boxes behind him and making Jet jump.

"Where did you _come_ from?" he gasped, but went on without waiting for an answer because Aang was always hanging around in places Jet was sure no one could ever get to. It must have been an airbender thing — he was working on his theory that the little Avatar could fly, and hadn't found any evidence yet that he was wrong. "I didn't ask," he said with a shrug, and caught Aang's hand as he reached out to touch it. "Paws off,_ xiao hóuzi_," he said, using Toph's affectionate nickname (it was just so _apt_) and pushing him in front of him as he made his way back up to the bridge. "I want you stayin' outta sight, got it? Hama Sila ain't known for being nice, and she'd _love_ to kidnap you and sell you off to them that want you dead."

"I can take care of myself," Aang said, crossing his arms, and Jet rolled his eyes.

"You're still a kid," Jet told him, arms crossed. "And when you're on my ship, you're my responsibility. You don't like it, you can find another ship to fly with."

"Maybe I will," Aang replied, but smiled impishly. Good that he was getting cheerful now that Toph wasn't quite so close to death's door — sadness didn't _fit_ on the little monkey's face. "I'll get my own ship," he continued. "And fly around the 'Verse helping people."

"Yeah, and you'll starve to death," he countered, and received an inexpert glare. Anger didn't really fit on his face either, Jet decided. "Quiet, _xiao hóuzi_," he said, holding up a hand, "I don't wanna hear it. Longshot, let 'em know we've got the goods and we'll be there posthaste. Aang, go hide out in Katara's shuttle while we're doing this job. Don't want Hama hearin' you're on the ship."

Aang sighed dramatically, but went without any vocal protest.

Once they had landed, he and Longshot went down to the cargo bay, but Bee met them halfway, her face clouded. "Sir, we have a problem," she said seriously.

"What?" he asked. "Don't tell me we got the wrong goods."

"No," she replied, walking him into the cargo bay, where Haru was standing with Pipsqueak and the Duke, one of the boxes open in front of them. "The cargo — it's medicine, sir," she told him quietly, gesturing to the rows and rows of tiny vials nested in styrofoam packing. "Pascaline-D," she explained, "Haru looked it up on the Cortex — the people on this planet all suffer from some nasty coal-mining disease you get in your lungs and don't get rid of, that's why they... all the coughing," she said desperately, pleadingly. He knew where she was going with this, and he pressed his fist against his lip hard. "Hama's gonna sell it on the black market, it goes for a hell of a price. But those people _need_ this medicine."

Jet stared hard at the cargo, but shook his head. "We can't back down on the deal. Bee, we_ can't_," he repeated, as she started to protest. "We're already at the meetin' point — that big tattooed freak'll be walking through the doors any second now. It's too_ late_. We knew we were gettin' in with a bad woman when we started, no sense in growin' a conscience now. 'Sides, you tellin' me you _want_ to be on Hama's bad side?"

"No, but these people — "

"Will live," he cut her off, and snapped the box closed, stomach rolling. He didn't like doing this, but he and his crew hadn't eaten a proper meal in two months, Toph needed the antibiotics Hama was paying for, and the ship was running on the bare bones of its second-to-last fuel cell. If they backed out of the deal now, they'd be drifting, starving, and setting Toph's body out in a space burial, all while waiting helpless for Hama to come knocking on their door to kill the rest of them. It was finish the job, or _be_ finished.

He didn't like leaving the people with no choice but to buy back their meds at Hama's prices, but it was them or his crew.

And Jet _always_ looked out for his own.

"Jet," Bee started, incredulous, but he shook his head and turned as someone knocked at the airlock door and Crow walked in, all threatening, glare set on his face.

"The goods are intact?" he asked, and Jet gave him his best shit-eating grin.

"Perfect condition," he replied cheerfully. "Job went off without a hitch."

"Good," Crow said, handing over a new envelope large enough to keep official documents in and waiting as he checked it over to make sure everything was there: a neat pile of credits three rows high and two rows deep, actually a fair bit more than looked right. Flushed up against the side was a letter-sized slip of paper — Hama worked so low-tech, he didn't think anyone used ink and sheets of paper for anything other than fancy certificates anymore — which he slid out and read, confusion slowly shifting to nausea.

_Medicine is expensive, I know, so I've added enough for two full rounds of vancomycin to the amount already agreed upon. My best wishes to your ill crewmember, may he or she have a swift recovery._

"Is everything good?" Crow asked, in the tone of someone who didn't care if the answer was yes or no. Jet slid the paper back into the envelope and tried to smile, but failed.

"Yeah, it's great. Tell the Lady Sila — "_ that she can burn in hell, that I won't be in her debt, that I don't want anything to do with her so-called charity_ " — that we said thank you for the extra kindness."

Cut out of the same cloth, indeed.

Sometimes, he even made himself sick.


	6. Chapter Five: Betting Against the Odds

On _Freedom_

"Scrolls?" Katara asked, and Bee nodded.

"Old ones," the first mate replied, expression strained, gesturing with a spoon and prodding her plate of protein mistrustfully. "Lots of 'em, too."

Katara thought about that for a long moment — the old woman's surname was Sila, the same name as a Water Tribe god of wind that she'd heard stories of from Gran-Gran when she was young. And if the woman was Water Tribe, they might be waterbending scrolls. It made sense, but how was she supposed to get her hands on them?

"Don't even start," Zuko said, startling her out of her reverie. "I know what you're thinking. There's no way," he insisted, and she scoffed.

"You have no idea what I'm thinking," she huffed, but she knew by the look on his face that he did. He looked worried, and a little annoyed (although he was always annoyed, with Jet and with the ship and with the food and with Toph and with — everything), and looking straight through her, something he was starting to get disturbingly good at. "Okay, but what if they _are_ waterbending scrolls? Toph... I could help her."

"It's not worth the risk," he said. "That woman's too dangerous."

"Well, I'm pretty dangerous, too," she replied fervently, and he made a face.

"I'm not losing anyone else — " he started, but Bee cut him off before the conversation could turn to Iroh, prodding Katara with her spoon and talking loudly.

"Not this kind of dangerous," she said gravely. "You didn't see the woman she had hanging in her torture room."

"I know," Katara sighed. "But there's so much more I could be doing for her if I just..."

"You're still learning," Zuko said firmly. "It takes time."

"_You're_ lecturing _me_ on patience?" she teased, trying to smile, and he rolled his eyes.

"I'm not _lecturing_," he grumbled. "I'm just... saying."

"Right," she said lightly, resting an elbow on the table and leaning on it. "You're not lecturing, you're just telling me important things in a teacherly tone." She looked to Bee, eyes wide and innocent. "Two completely different things, right, Bee?"

"Mm," Bee replied, taking a bite of the protein as though she was really hoping it would suddenly turn into a steak, or at least real food, "most definitely. Lecturing requires a podium," she added, and Katara snickered.

Zuko scowled and looked away, but she poked him in the side. "Hey, grumpy-pants, we tease you 'cause we _like_ you. Don't get all huffy on me."

"I'm not huffy! That isn't even a word!"

"Sure it is. Means snooty," Bee chimed in, and walked over to the kitchen island, ignoring Zuko's glare. "I'm making some hot cocoa. You want any?"

"We have cocoa?" Katara asked incredulously, glancing at her, and she winced.

"Well, no," she replied, "but we _have_ had a box of chocolate flavoring for about a century, and I was thinking we could maybe mix it with protein and dissolve into water and it might taste a little less like ass."

She cringed, and glanced at Zuko, who just looked disgusted. "Um, thanks, but I'll pass," she said, turning so that she was facing the island and leaning against the table. "I could make tea? That's sure to taste better than... that. Probably not as good for you, though."

"This stuff is good for us?" Zuko asked, pretending to be surprised. "Because it tastes like dirt."

"It's got all kinds of essential vitamins," Bee said, pulling out the chocolate flavoring and measuring out a careful teaspoon of it to mix with her protein. She stopped, looked at it, and then looked back at the chocolate flavoring and just poured the whole thing into the cup, setting it on the burner. "Immunizations, minerals... it's all the stuff you need food for, except... without the food. At least it doesn't go bad," she added, making an obvious effort to look on the bright side.

"Well, there is that," Zuko said sarcastically, and Katara nudged him admonishingly.

"You know, there is this thing that some of us try," she said, in a tone of sudden realization, "it's called _optimism_." He rolled his eyes.

"I tried that once," he replied, leaning back in his chair. "And then I discovered pessimism. We go together much better."

"I think you're just grumpy," she muttered, turning away and sighing dramatically. "You just hate that I've figured you out."

Bee interrupted them with a _huge_ coughing fit as she tasted the hot cocoa, making a face that suggested she was trying to _will_ the taste away.

"Experiment failed?" Katara asked unnecessarily, but she actually shook her head.

"It tastes exactly like I expected it to," she replied weakly, eyes watering. "It'll be _great_ when I hit up Pipsqueak's vodka stash."

And for the first time since they'd landed on St. Albans — Zuko _laughed_.

* * *

On Beaumonde

Suki peered at Sokka in the darkness of the room, shadows long on the wall.

She wasn't sure where they stood on the spectrum of romance — friends with benefits, just sleeping together, in a relationship, or, heaven help her, _in love_ — she couldn't pin it down. She hardly knew what love even _was_, and she was only good at dealing with boys when she had a weapon in her hand or acid on her tongue. Boys were always scared of her, and so were any girls she'd been interested in, too... romance just wasn't what people saw when they looked at Suki.

All she really knew about love was what she'd learned from her parents, which was "love will make you blind," and from the Companion House, which was "love will ruin you."

She sighed and ran her fingers lightly over his shoulder — he usually slept like a log, if he slept at all, and she figured that she could probably scream in his ear and he wouldn't wake up right now. She envied him; she was too agitated to close her eyes, and sleep never seemed to hold onto her.

On his chest were a series badly-healed scars, a thousand details that she didn't know about him, and she traced a few of them idly. She knew his _story_, the clinical version, like she'd read it in a history book, but _Sokka_ was more than a collection of words from his past — Sokka was the adorable, dorky boy who had won her affection and nearly hanged with her in the palace, but he was also the inhuman creature who had beaten Admiral Zhao with the butt of a rifle until there wasn't anything left to tell who it was.

She didn't _want_ to be able to reconcile the two, but she knew that demon, the _taste_ of that emotion. Family _mattered_ to Sokka, the same way her warriors had once _mattered_ to her, and after Katara had crashed to the battlefield with the tower, he had just — broken. That Katara _hadn't_ been dead was probably the only thing that had saved him from becoming his father, chasing vengeance down and further down, into the black hole. Suki had managed to escape its gravity once, but she had been trained her whole life in how to shut down on the desire to scream and the need to _make them pay_; she was the exception, never the rule.

She wanted to save him from ever falling into it again, teach him how to survive it, but she just didn't know what to _do_. Her "system shut down" function was a failsafe she'd been taught from such a young age that she didn't even know how she did it anymore: it had become _instinct_. Even then, it had taken everything she had, and a long string of false starts, to leave Shadow behind — was it even possible to save someone else when she barely had the strength to save herself?

She'd already taken so many blows, one more might just be the death of her; reaching out to this save-the-'verse cause she'd fallen into — reaching out to this man who wasn't afraid of her or trying to change her — was _such_ a risk, a terrifying risk, a bet she knew better than to make. Suki knew the numbers, she knew the odds, and she knew what would happen when — if — _when_ — they failed. Suki knew a losing battle when she saw it, but she was maybe the only one.

Was it worth it?

(Was _he_ worth it?)

They were on Beaumonde. This was her chance to leave, and probably the last.

"What's wrong?" he asked suddenly, voice rough, and she started — when had he woken up? — and opened her eyes. He was watching her as intently as she had been watching him.

"Nothing," she replied, smiling, but he didn't smile back.

"You're lying," he said, propping himself up on his elbow. "What's wrong?" he repeated, and she glanced away.

"I was just — I was thinking about — all of this, all of — St. Albans," she answered hesitantly, quietly, and he looked down, but continued to trace circles on her shoulder.

"What I did to Zhao," he said bluntly, and then fell back onto his back, running a hand through his hair. "I don't — I don't even remember," he croaked. "I just — "

"I know," she cut him off, and he looked at her. "It's all a blur, you can't even _focus_ on it. It's like something else took control of your body. I've — I know."

He watched her carefully, and then swallowed. "Kyoshi Warriors operated out of Shadow," he said softly, apparently randomly, a question as much as a statement, and she blinked it all back, drank it down, swallowed memory whole.

"Kyoshi Warriors are gone," she replied evenly. "_Long_ gone, now, didn't even make it to the end of the war."

"How many are left?" he asked, and she turned to the wall, dried salt and iron on her lips.

"...one."

He pulled on her shoulder, turning her back toward him and kissed her, hard and intense and filled with things unspoken. She was the last of her kind, a lineage that stretched back almost four millennia, and _she_ was the weak link, the reason they had fallen. The things she _didn't_ tell him explained everything: her shame, her memory, her fear, her _hate_, fires still smoldering under her skin, over seven years after the fact.

The next morning, a pair of golden fans was sitting on the pillow.

* * *

At the Staggering Naga bar in Xīnbei

Jet scowled as he made his way through the bar; this was a much seedier dive than the Maidenhead (which was _saying_ something) and even _he_ felt a little unsafe, but he was pretty sure he'd never be allowed in the Maidenhead ever again. Almost as soon as he walked into the room, a woman with white hair stopped him — white hair — that hit something on his memory, something other than Diana, standing in front of him. He raised an eyebrow; she didn't look like herself.

"Jet, I'm _so_ glad to see you," she gushed, but it wasn't her usual lilt. She sounded _scared_. "I need your help."

"No," he replied shortly, pushing past her. She grabbed his arm.

"I have payment," she insisted, and he shrugged her hand off of him. It was bad enough that he'd had to deal with Hama — Hama! _That_ was where he'd seen white hair recently, the woman Hama had been torturing.

"Pretty rare hair color," he said slowly, and she scowled.

"It's a dye job," she snapped. "Will you help me?" she pleaded. But he was all charity-ed out, and wanted neither to give nor receive.

"Sorry, sweetcakes. Find some other _wángbādàn_ to con," he said, stalking over to the table Fanty had told him they'd meet him at, although they weren't there yet.

"Jet!" she cried, but he waved her off.

"Bye, Diana," he said pointedly, and she let out a frustrated sound before storming off. Bee and Longshot joined him at the table, both watching Diana march away curiously. "She wanted my help," he explained, shrugging. "I'm not that stupid."

He peered at Bee — since the train job, she'd been closed off to him, but she must have talked it over with Longshot and decided to put it behind them. He hoped she had forgiven him; it might help him forgive himself.

As though she could read his mind, she smiled at him and elbowed him in the side. Longshot, on his other side, smirked. "Is Jet _brooding?_" he asked, a teasing note in his quiet voice. Bee grinned.

"I think he is. What, you think that acting like Zuko will make one of our Companions suddenly fall madly in love with you?" she asked, poking him in the side, right where he was ticklish. He jerked away from her, but then Longshot poked him in the other side.

"This is insubordination," he growled, as they tickled him, but couldn't keep the relieved smile off his face. "That's what this is. _Mutiny!_"

* * *

Suki lounged at the bar with Sokka and Ty Lee; Katara, Zuko, Aang, and Haru were back on the ship, and Mai was running some kind of errand involving her bank account, the nearest government building, and her knives, while Pipsqueak and the Duke played a drinking game with a few strangers, everyone trying to forget the missing piece. Toph was still asleep in the Infirmary, and although she had stabilized with the medication Jet had gotten for her, nothing else had really changed.

It made Suki's stomach clench to think about — Toph had grown on her since St. Albans, and it just wasn't _right,_ for her to be so still and quiet. Toph was supposed to be boastful and loud and taking over the whole ship with her presence, not... this.

"She'll be fine," Ty Lee said suddenly, shattering the silence. "I just know it," she added, and then smiled hugely. Ty Lee was good at that: smiling when there wasn't anything to smile about. "Haru fixed her up really good, and with Katara there helping out... plus, Toph's _way_ too belligerent to die like this," she said, then turned and took a menu, staring hard at it. "She'll be fine," she repeated, and Suki wondered if she found it any more convincing than they did.

"Who'll be fine?" someone said, and Sokka and Suki both stiffened. It was the white-haired beauty that she had hit the last time they were on Beaumonde. The woman smiled brilliantly, if insincerely. "No hard feelings, darling," she told Suki, and then looked to Ty Lee. "What's gone wrong this time?"

"None of your business," Sokka replied tightly, and the beautiful woman smiled.

"Sokka, I'm _so_ happy to see you," she trilled falsely, desperation badly hidden, "I was _just_ thinking that I had this _fantastic_ job offer, but no one around to deal with." She leaned against the bar and studied the menu as though she wasn't dangling a job in front of them. "Nice _and_ lucrative," she added lightly. "Wanna know more?"

"Why should I trust you?" he asked, arms crossed.

"I'm being completely up-front with you," she replied, voice taking on a hard note as she dropped the act. "This is a hard job, dangerous, and it'll make you a few nasty enemies... not that that's anything new. But I have payment, _good_ payment, million-square easy." Suki raised an eyebrow and glanced at Sokka — for a moment, naked greed crossed over his face, but then he masked it with indifference. They'd been two months living off nothing more than tasteless protein bars; if the woman wasn't lying, then they couldn't afford to turn down this job.

"Why are you offering it to me?" he challenged her, covering his hunger with a blank expression. She shrugged.

"I need someone to do it, and fast," she sighed, "and you're here. Besides, you've had to step lightly since that show at St. Albans — oh, don't even _try_ to pretend that wasn't you," she said, catching him before he could do just that. "Me? I couldn't care less," she said, desperation exposing the lie. "But after _that_, you'll be wanting to steer clear of the Alliance. Meanwhile," she explained, clicking her tongue, "that kind of force happens to be _exactly_ what I need."

Sokka looked to her, and she nodded surreptitiously. There was a familiarity in the way the woman spoke, carried herself, explained herself — she had Companion training or something similar, Suki had a _lot_ of experience with reading through lying Companions. And the woman was honest about the job, it was all over her.

"All right," Sokka said, walking over to one of the tables, followed by all three women, "let's talk."

* * *

On _Freedom_

Waterbending, Katara knew, required at least reasonable freedom of movement, so they had filled buckets and buckets of water at the nearest washing station and hauled them back into the ship, claiming that they were stocking up for a long trip, and scattered them around the cargo bay. She had wanted to use her shuttle because she was paranoid about being seen, but after the first attempt had ended with both she and Aang tripping over her table and drenching her bed, they had made the diplomatic decision to move.

Zuko was on the lookout, lounging tensely on a chair in by the door, ostensibly to give them prior warning if anyone decided to prod them. They had closed the main cargo bay doors, but the last thing Katara wanted was for someone to look through the window and see her and Aang bending. Even though, privately, she wasn't really sure why anyone would bother.

"Okay, let's try this one," she said, and tacked an _again_ onto it in her mind. Aang was a quick study, having already mastered all of the simpler moves on the scroll and had even begun crafting his own techniques, but she was learning much, _much_ slower. It didn't make _sense_ — she _knew_ she could do this, why was it so hard when she was trying?

"You look like you firebend," Aang chirped, and she swallowed an angry retort. So, she was getting shown up by a twelve-year-old. That was all right — he was the bearer of phenomenal cosmic power all squashed into a little kid. It was only natural that he would be remarkably good at waterbending. "You are stiff."

_And you're a brat,_ she thought, and instantly felt bad. Aang wasn't a brat, he was just precocious. She had liked that when she was teaching him English, but now it annoyed her. "All right," she said sharply, "let's walk through the moves together."

With agonizing ease, Aang walked through every move on the scroll, obviously going extra-slow so she wouldn't feel as bad (which made it worse, but at least he was trying to be nice), and then finished in a splash of water that dazzled in the light right up until it drenched Zuko. "Oops," he said, and Katara tried not to laugh at the soggy prince. "I... um, was not paying attention."

She suspected that he was lying, and didn't want to think about why.

"That's _great_," Zuko started sarcastically, but she pulled the water off of him and shot him a mock glare before he could continue.

"He's still learning, go easy on him," she said, but it was clear that she and the scroll had taught Aang all he was going to learn today. Still, she thought, there was merit in it — now that he'd learned the basics, he was experimenting with water, and he seemed to enjoy it quite a bit; maybe now he wouldn't be skating everywhere. She'd rather him play with water in the cargo bay than the air scooter — it left less of a mess to clean up.

She took a deep breath. Zuko insisted that breathing and meditation were important parts of bending, and Aang had agreed with him, so they had all been doing breathing exercises every morning at 0530 sharp (which usually meant that they both had to wake her up). It helped somewhat, but she still struggled with moving the water unless she wasn't thinking about it. "Ugh," she sighed, and leaned against the wall. "Why is this so hard to do when I'm trying?" she groaned, and Aang turned to her, eyes wide.

"You think too much," he replied bluntly. "Bending is your spirit, so it is natural."

"He's right," Zuko said, looking at Aang with a calculating look. "You have to feel it. When you're reacting to a threat — " he didn't say it, but she remembered that horrible image of the blood-splattered snow, the icy hills and the bruised-black bodies strewn about " — you're feeling, not thinking. Try to feel it."

"Waterbending is the most... uh, _sam ling soeng tung_ of the elements," Aang added, sounding like he was reciting something he'd learned long ago. "I do not know what that means in English," he said sheepishly.

"Try to explain it in another word," she told him absently, and he bit his lip.

"Um, emotion. Feel. Understand..."

"Sympathy?" she offered, and his brow furrowed.

"_Em_pathy?" Zuko suggested, and she looked at him.

"That sounds better. It would explain... a lot, actually," she said, thinking about it. Iroh had told her that the element a person bent was related to their personality as well as their genes — thus, Toph, with her brusque and straightforward personality, was an earthbender, and Zuko, rash and smoldering, was a firebender, and Aang, flighty and eager, was an airbender. If water was associated with empathy and insight, then it made sense that she was a waterbender.

"Right!" Aang crowed. "Waterbending is the most empathy of the elements," he said, and then made a face. "That sounds wrong."

"Empathy is a noun," she said, "when it's an adjective, it's _empathetic_. The quality of having empathy," she recited, glad now that she had studied English in Companion training, since speaking the language properly — and not like, for instance, Jet's sorry excuse for English — was an important part of being a Companion — and, she was learning, a much _more_ important part of teaching it to a young boy.

"Anyway," Aang went on cheerfully, "you have to feel waterbending, the monks at the temple said."

She smiled at him; it was good that he was talking about his past a little more today. He didn't often talk about the _people_ he had known — and she never pushed him, because that obviously hurt him to think about — and she suspected that there was one person in particular he was thinking of whenever he said that the "monks" had taught him something, but he hadn't yet given them a name. Still, even if he wasn't telling them everything, he was _talking_, and that was enough, for now.

"How do I do that on cue?" she muttered to herself, and then sighed. "Well, I think that's all we can do with the scroll, anyway. I'll have to learn it on my own."

"So," Aang asked, tilting his head, "what do we do with all these buckets?"

* * *

At the Staggering Naga

Jet was gonna give him hell, he just _knew_ it. But he had reason to believe that Ceri-Dian-ebe was telling the truth about this job, and probably the payment as well, although obviously she'd never just _give_ them anything, even if they had already had an agreement — that just meant that they had to come up with a way to con her if she tried to stiff them their pay.

Conning the con-artist — he hoped Jet would appreciate the irony.

Ceri-Dian-ebe's job was simple: she wanted them to free a prisoner. The problem lay in who the jailer was: naturally, Hama Sila. He'd personally made it a point never have anything to do with her, ever, but apparently someone Ceri-Dian-ebe was close to had made that mistake and was now in the madwoman's clutches. Their recent experience with the woman would be useful, either in doing the job or in choking out an explanation for why they _wouldn't_ do the job whenever they stopped laughing long enough to speak.

All she wanted them to do was get that person out. No frills, no secrets. In return, Ceri-Dian-ebe promised them the Lassiter, the first laser weapon, something she had stolen a while back and still had on-hand. She even said she would give them the name of a contact who had already agreed to buy it.

All for going in, guns blazing, to the most dangerous skyplex in the 'Verse and plucking someone out of Hama's clutches. Suki had asked what they were supposed to do if the person was already dead, and Ceri-Dian-ebe had replied that the job was still the same... It reminded Sokka eerily of his hunt for his sister, the single-minded determination to find her — or her body — at any and all cost.

He wondered just who this person was, that their little con-artist was so desperate to save them. She refused to say anything about them — she wouldn't even give them a _gender!_ — but she insisted that they would know who it was when they found the person.

Of course, she didn't trust them anymore than they trusted her, and so she had every intention of joining them on this mission.

"I don't think this is a good idea," Suki murmured, arm-in-arm with him. "She can't be trusted."

"No, but I'm working on a plan," he replied in a low voice. Ty Lee suddenly grabbed his other arm, taking a leaf out of their books and using the close proximity to talk quietly.

"I don't like this at all," she said quietly, and both he and Suki stared at her for a moment. "What?" she whispered. Sokka sighed.

"Trustworthy or not, she isn't lying about this person, and I wouldn't wish Hama's brand of torture on _anyone_," he said.

"What kind of torture is that?" Suki asked, and he almost tripped over his feet. Walking with two women on his arms was much cooler in theory than in practice. "I've never heard any details."

"I have," he replied darkly, "and it's bad. We'll talk to Jet, he's finished with Fanty and Mingo by now. C'mon." He shrugged Ty Lee off his arm and sauntered causally over to where Jet was sitting, alone, at the bar. Bee and Longshot had taken the money and were now stocking up on supplies, but Jet had apparently decided that he'd rather start drinking. Sokka had noticed that he was always _off_ when he wasn't with either the pilot or his second-in-command — or else Mai, who had a way of balancing out his behavior, but she was currently either reopening her bank accounts or being arrested for multiple homicide; and so, Jet drank.

"What did Diana want?" Jet drawled, when they reached the bar. He looked at them, and then grumbled something under his breath and knocked back a shot. "Don't tell me she tried to con you, too."

"She has a job," he replied, hopping up onto a stool. "Seems legit, and she has pay."

"You sure about... any of that?"

"She showed us the payment, and told us everything about the job up-front. I think she's serious."

"She's had Companion training," Suki said, and they both turned to her. Sokka gaped. "I recognize some of the things she does, I've seen it a million times. Ty Lee can confirm that," she added, turning to Ty Lee, who was busy flirting with a strange man. "Ty Lee," she snapped, and the girl jumped.

"Huh?"

"Our white-haired friend, wouldn't you say she's had Companion training?" Suki asked, and Ty Lee nodded several times.

"Oh, definitely," she replied, "she pours drinks just like Katara and Mai do, didja see?" The guy she was flirting with looked unhappy at the sudden shift of Ty Lee's attention, but she didn't seem to care, or even notice. "We talking about the job?"

"Yeah," Suki replied, and started to say something else, but Ty Lee began talking again.

"She was definitely telling the truth about it, and whoever's trapped in that woman's skyplex," she said lightly, looking surprised as a drink appeared in front of her. "Is this from you?" she asked the man beside her, and then beamed when he nodded. "Oh, _thank_ you!" she trilled, and then turned back to the conversation. "Whoever it is, she's super-worried. I think she's been crying a lot, too. It's probably her husband or sister or something like that, someone really, really close. She's too desperate to lie."

"You mention a woman who has a skyplex," Jet began, a strange look on his face, "tell me you're not talking about Hama."

"We are," Sokka confirmed, and Jet laughed shortly.

"Yeah, that's about seven kinds o' _no_," he chortled, "she'd have to have _damn_ good pay for that kind of - "

"She has the Lassiter," Sokka said, cutting Jet off.

"Somethin' like _that_, yeah," he said thoughtfully. "All right, I'll think about it."


	7. Chapter Six: the Volcano's Edge

On _Freedom_

Diana, it turned out, _was_ serious about the job — serious enough to join them on his ship. He did _not_ like the fact that she was there, and he made no effort to hide it.

"This is ridiculous," she seethed, stuffing the packing plastic into a makeshift pillow. "Can I at least have a _blanket?_"

"Sure," he replied cheerfully, "if someone's willing to lend you one."

After a long pause, finally, Aang walked forward, holding out his blanket. Jet scowled, but Diana beamed. "Thank you, ah," she said, looking at him expectantly.

"Aaron," Jet answered for him, and Aang nodded.

"I am pleased to meet you," he said, holding out his hand to shake. Diana smiled warmly and shook it.

"I'm Diana."

"Or Phoebe," Sokka said, and Jet grinned. Aang looked confused.

"We're going with Diana," she said bluntly, and then turned to Jet. "I can help with the planning stages, you don't have to confine me to — "

"Nope," he replied sharply, turning on his heel and marching out of the room. They had cleared most of the junk — excluding the ruined mule, for sentimental reasons, and because he thought there might be some worth left to salvage from it — from the cargo bay where Diana would be sleeping for the duration of her stay, but the whole back wall was warped and torn in places and required fixing in the worst way. He and Bee would have to do some work on it while they were en route to Hama's skyplex, but the real heavy lifting would have to wait for Toph to wake up.

His crew followed him, picking through the rubble and filing through the hole that had once been the door (it had been jammed in the chaos; Pipsqueak and Longshot had torn it out over the three days it had taken them to get to Beaumonde, and left the jagged doorway) into the dining room. "Who is she?" Aang asked, trotting up next to him like an adorable tattooed puppy.

"A bad woman," he replied, "and I want you to stay away from her."

"She didn't seem so bad," Aang said, looking behind him almost hopefully, and Jet felt queasy. Since when did twelve-year-olds have sex dri — oh, wait, he had been twelve once. Aang was right at that age where sex was curious and forbidden and even more impossibly alluring than ever before (or ever again, really), and Diana _oozed_ sex. He'd have to warn Katara to keep a close eye on him, make sure he didn't get in over his head with the con woman. He doubted that even Aang's spectacularly good puppy-dog eyes would convince her to treat him like a human being.

"She is, trust me," Sokka said fervently, laying a hand on his shoulder. "Remember our talk the other day?" Aang nodded. "Okay, she? Is the exact type of woman I want you to stay far, _far_ away from."

"Do I want to know what this talk was about?" he asked, and Aang shook his head.

"Um," Sokka coughed pointedly. _"Things_."

"Yeah, keep that to yourself," he said, pouring himself a cup of coffee in a feeble attempt to quell his nicotine jitters. "So, what's the plan?"

Around the table, his crew lounged, and he didn't fail to notice the empty chair — Toph's favorite, a metal thing that she kept just the right distance away from the wall to lean back against it and prop her feet up.

"Shoot everything that moves?" Pipsqueak suggested, and he raised an eyebrow. "What? I didn't think our plan was gonna be that complicated."

* * *

On the Providence-class Destroyer _Iago_

Azula seethed as the two green-clad men led her into the ship. Those — those _people_ in Parliament had sent their own man to meddle in her affairs? Death, she thought, was rather _too_ good for them.

Providence-class ships were much smaller than the Tower-class, but they were longer and made for more complicated movement through the ship. They had been crafted as the homes of strike forces, meant to go into enemy territory, so they were made with the assumption of being boarded in mind — a necessary risk that they took by going behind enemy lines — which left them with twisting halls and confusing turns, dead ends and staircases that lead to nothing.

They were designed for the type of person who was paranoid to a fault and regularly expected the worst, but had mostly fallen into disuse after the war; Parliament only broke them out now for special, secret missions.

That meant they were using one of their best — an Operative — and, judging by the stoic men who were leading her in, she was dealing with Long Feng. Although, _technically_, he didn't have a name, Azula made it a point to know everything that could threaten her, and that meant knowing all of the tools the Parliament might use if (and when) they turned on her. Long Feng had been scooped up by the Alliance somewhere around the age of seven and had spent the last forty years training, learning, and occasionally stamping out pockets of rebellion in Alliance lands. The exact details of his education had stubbornly eluded her, but she knew enough to know he was dangerous.

He was also their best; Parliament was afraid of the Avatar, and they were right to fear — like everyone else, she had heard the whispers of rebellion sweeping the border planets in the wake of Zhao's crushing defeat at the Water Tribe. Right now, they were only whispers, but in a system that was still reeling from the recent civil war and whose economy still hadn't adjusted properly to peace, whispers were deadly as knives and grew like weeds.

Azula agreed with that, but found their methods asinine. The Avatar had to be stopped, yes, but so did the Outer Rim; the Avatar was little more than a catalyst, the right element introduced at the right time to cause an uproar, and removing him would do nothing about the circumstances that had led to the Water Tribe's rebellion in the first place. Parliament thought killing him would suffice, but they were wrong — and, frankly, idiotic to think so. The adage about the snake dying when the head was cut off was a blatant lie.

No, the Outer Rim was more like a cockroach: even without a head, it would continue to survive, until it finally starved to death. Killing the Avatar _might_ solve the problem eventually — but would more likely turn him into a martyr, or, at best, hold the war off for another few years, until the spirit reincarnated and the cycle continued. Getting rid of the Avatar wasn't the answer.

Azula had a better idea in mind to bring the Outer Rim to heel, one which had lain in wait for years and was _ideal_ for her purposes.

And she didn't need an Operative complicating matters.

* * *

In the Spirit World

"Iroh!" Aang shouted. The wind swept over the fields where they had lain him to rest, but he didn't see anyone or anything. He sighed, and continued to walk through the snow, hoping to find the old man, or at least a few answers to some lingering questions. "Iroh!" he yelled again.

"He will not come," a voice from behind him said. He whirled around - standing there, glowing blue against the snow like Roku had, was an Air Nomad woman. She folded her hands into her sleeves. "He has reincarnated. Walk with me," she said sharply, and turned, then walked right off the side of the planet. He followed her, and they landed on another world, a beautiful one near the sparkling white sun. It was surreal, to be able to walk between planets that he knew were millions of miles apart in reality, but that seemed to be just one of the many quirks of this evolving spirit world.

"I thought he might have," he said finally, "but I wanted to talk to him, so I..." he trailed off, biting his lip. The woman led him through a forest until they came to a temple, which looked vaguely Air Nomad in construction, and he thought of the religion Mai had spoken of — was this a Buddhist temple?

"This is not one of our temples," she told him, as though reading his thoughts, "but the parishioners here share many of our philosophies. You have much to learn, Avatar Aang," she said gravely, sitting cross-legged in front of an altar of a cheerful-looking fat man who reminded him vaguely of Iroh. "I am Avatar Yangchen," she explained. "What did you seek in the spirit world?"

"I wanted to know about the Avatar Spirit," he answered immediately, reverently; he'd heard stories about Yangchen. "How do I control it?"

"You must learn to unlock all of your chakras," she replied. "You cannot do that within the spirit world."

"Who do I talk to?" he asked eagerly, bouncing on the balls of his feet. "Hardly anyone still remembers that the Avatar even exists, let alone how to control the spirit..."

"As I said," Yangchen began, "the parishioners of this religion follow many of our philosophies. They may know the answer."

"Thank you," he replied, bowing to her. Something still tugged at his thoughts, a worry that wouldn't go away. "Avatar Yangchen..." he started uncertainly.

"Yes?" she asked, and he took a deep breath even though he didn't strictly have to breathe in the spirit world.

"What's gonna happen to the Avatar Spirit when I die?" he asked, almost as one long word. "Will it just find someone else? But the Water Tribe barely exists anymore, and the Earth Kingdom is gone... and nobody bends anymore, and..." She held up a hand to stop him.

"The Avatar Spirit is a World Spirit, Avatar Aang," she replied. "I suspect, from what the Spirit World is experiencing, when you die, it will splinter and find someone in each world."

"So there will be..." he began slowly, trying to think of how many worlds there were, "a lot of Avatars? How will they learn bending?"

"How will _you?" _she challenged, and he sat back hard on his tailbone. "The path opens to those who search for it," she continued, raising an eyebrow severely. "The power will be stretched thinner," she added, "but unless I am gravely mistaken, you are the last sole Avatar."

He thought about that for a long moment, then looked at her forlornly. "What do I do?" he whispered. "I'm just one person. How do I take care of an entire solar system?"

Yangchen finally smiled. "You will do what you have always done, Avatar Aang, and you will solve this problem as we have all solved it. Remember," she told him seriously, as he faded back into his body on the ship, "you are _not_ alone."

He opened his eyes to see Katara smiling at him, a bowl of water in hand.

"Ready to practice?" she asked, and he grinned.

* * *

On _Iago_

Long Feng hated Princess Azula.

"I look forward to working with you," he lied smoothly. Azula was an excellent leader, a tactical genius, and downright deadly in ways that weren't supposed to even exist anymore — she was every kind of perfect on the surface, but she was dangerous to him and to the Alliance. Her lust for power was going to spell trouble for them, and soon. "I assure you that you will have my complete support. We're after the same thing here, after all," he told her, smiling, and finished the sentence in his head — _in theory._ It was safer to assume that the princess always had something up her sleeve.

"You as well," she replied warmly. If he didn't know better, he'd think that she was the picture of kindness, openness, and grace. He thanked all the gods he'd ever heard of that he'd thought to do research on the royal family before deployment, or he might not have known to fear the princess. "To the Alliance," she said, raising her glass. "And to a prosperous future."

"To the Alliance," he repeated, raising his to toast, and waited for her to drink before he did.

"So," she began, taking a seat at the banquet table opposite him, "what is your plan to take on the Avatar?"

He bit his tongue. The last thing he wanted was to tell her, but if he didn't, he would have to answer to his superiors for shunning royalty — and, oh, how his superiors _fawned_ over Princess Azula, called her the shining light that would bring stability to the Alliance. He valiantly tried not to sneer; Azula would bring stability, certainly, but then, so had Xiang Yu. "I hadn't settled on one yet," he answered. "Perhaps my lady had something?"

She smiled, and he tried not to sweat under her intense eyes. "I've had a few ideas," she replied, lounging in her chair, looking completely at ease. "I haven't had a chance to fully flesh them all out yet, but there are a few things, swirling about in my head," she said, waving a hand idly, her smile congenial, perfectly-formed like it had been painted onto her face.

Azula _did_ have a plan, she just didn't want him to know about it. And he had no way of finding out unless she'd been stupid enough to tell her underlings about it — which she wasn't. He'd just have to wait for her to make her first move, but knowing Azula, that first move could easily be _checkmate_. "Well, we should discuss some of those possibilities," he suggested, and made a show of noticing suddenly that neither of them had touched their food. "Are you not hungry, milady?"

"I ate on my ship," she replied, without taking her eyes off of him. "And that sounds like a _capital_ idea, mister..."

"I have no name," he said immediately. "What sort of ideas did you have in mind?"

"Well, we know that he's traveling with a Firefly-class transport ship," she said, shrugging. "Why don't we start by putting a call for all captains of Firefly-class vessels to register with my ship — or yours," she added quickly, "so that we can weed out the ones who are unwilling to cooperate."

"That may not be a good idea," he replied slowly. "Fireflies are known for being smuggling ships, with... unpredictable crews."

"All the better," she said abruptly, clapping her hands like this was decided. "We can arrest anyone who refuses, and we'll even have good reason to do it. Fewer scumbags in the air."

* * *

On _F__reedom_

As if Jet wasn't already having a bad day (what the _gui_ was the princess doing, calling all Fireflies in to be registered?), Haru made it worse when he walked up to the bridge, face pale and drawn.

"Toph is awake," was all he said.


	8. Chapter Seven: Promises, Promises

On _Freedom_

Katara tried to hold the furious and hysterical Toph down on the bed, with Aang's help. "Toph, this isn't so bad," she cried, "it'll be okay, just let me — I can heal you, I just have to learn how."

"Yeah, and how are you gonna do that?" Toph snapped, voice breaking. "Wave your hands around and conjure up a new scroll? Or, I know, you're gonna bring some waterbenders back from the dead, that's it?" she screamed, and managed to get off the bed, only to crumple immediately to the floor at Katara's feet.

Haru had explained that he had noticed the injury was close to her spine, but hadn't been able to be sure of anything until she'd woken up, and he'd hoped for the best. Instead, they got the second-worst.

Toph was paralyzed from the waist down.

And she was taking it even worse than expected.

"What happened here?" Jet barked, coming into the Infirmary and seeing the disarray. Katara kneeled down to where Toph was sprawled out, choking on her frustrated sobs.

"The javelin clipped her spine, the fourth lumbral vertebra hit the cord," Haru said quietly, robotically, like an actor reading lines, disconnecting from the situation. "I thought... I _hoped_ that Katara's healing had..."

"Why didn't you just let me die?" Toph cried, and Katara recoiled, tears burning in her eyes. She didn't know what to say — Toph's feet were _important_ to her, and she used the sense of touch for _everything_ — without being able to feel the vibrations in the ground, she couldn't see, _and_ she'd need help to get around the ship, two things that she hated above all else. It was Aang who stepped in, face stormy, and grabbed her by the shoulders.

"This is not the end!" he shouted, matching her volume. "I would rather have Toph without legs than no Toph at all!"

"It may as well be the same," she croaked, and Aang pulled her into a tight hug. Katara wrapped her arms around both of them, trying not to cry at Toph's suffering.

"It is _not_," Aang said softly. "Me and Katara both waterbend now, and we will learn healing and we will _heal_ you, I promise."

Toph sniffed, and touched his face. "Not lying," she muttered, and then, "You _promise?" _she croaked, and Aang nodded firmly, a determined glint in his eyes. "I'm gonna hold you to that," she whispered, but she let him and Katara pick her up and put her back on the bed. Jet was watching, with his face schooled into blankness.

"You all right, Tophlet?" he asked affectionately, coming over and taking her hand. With the other, she rubbed her eyes violently. "This ship don't run without the best mechanic in the 'Verse, you know that."

"You need a better ship, then," she mumbled, and Jet smiled, but it didn't look at all sincere.

"Yeah, but then it wouldn't be _Freedom_, would it?" he asked, and Katara gave him a watery smile. "Wouldn't be home."

"Can't do my job," she muttered dejectedly, "if I can't walk."

"There's an old war saying," he said, pulling up Haru's chair and sitting on it, still holding her hand tightly, "goes like this: When you can't run, you crawl."

"I can't crawl," she snapped. "My legs ain't — "

"And when you can't crawl," he continued a little louder, cutting her off, "you find someone to carry you. You're my _mechanic_, Tophlet," he said quietly, "you're part of my crew and that ain't gonna change any time soon, _dong ma?_"

"I will carry you, too," Aang added in a small voice, taking her other hand. She screwed up her face like she was refusing to cry anymore, and failed.

* * *

Jet and Haru left Katara and Aang in the Infirmary with Toph. He closed the door quietly behind him and looked at the doctor. "Tell me the truth: do you think Katara's bending can heal her spine?" he asked seriously, and Haru sighed.

"I don't know," he replied, running a hand through his long hair, then glaring at it like it owed him something. "It healed the skin and muscle on her back pretty cleanly... if the cord is just pinched, not severed... if she knew more advanced techniques... it's possible."

"Possible," Jet muttered, and then louder, "All right." His mind was made up: with the money they'd get from fencing the Lassiter, they were going to any and all rare book stores on any planet they could find, to get a hold of waterbending scrolls, so that Katara might have the technique to heal Toph. If it had been anyone else, he would have remodeled the ship to accommodate a wheelchair, but Toph _saw_ through her feet — now, she really _was_ blind, and she couldn't walk, to boot.

He'd go to the end of the 'Verse if it meant never having to hear his mechanic cry again.

"All right," he said sharply, walking into the dining room where Bee, Pipsqueak, and the Duke were cleaning their weapons, "Bee, how far off from Hama's skyplex are we?"

"How is Toph?" Bee asked, and he shot her a glare.

"That ain't what I asked you," he said, and she glanced away, understanding on her face. Bee read him entirely too well.

"About an hour," she replied, "give or take a few, dependin' on how nasty her defense is and how much dodgin' we have to do."

"Good," he said, and then turned to Haru, who had followed him through the ship. "Doc, you're gonna stay behind, but keep the Infirmary stocked. Might want to move Toph to the couch outside — " he hesitated; she wouldn't be able to get into her bunk, they'd have to figure out something to do about that " — so the bed's clear, just in case. Bee, you and me are goin' in first, gonna try bargainin' with Hama, but let's not expect things to be pretty. Have Longshot, Pipsqueak, and the Duke on-hand, we're probably gonna need 'em bail us out."

"That's a bit dangerous, sir," Bee replied, loading a shotgun. "You sure we don't just want to burst in there?"

"Not if we don't have to," he answered. "Duke, get the con woman up here, she needs to come with us. Pipsqueak," he said, as the Duke bolted off to get Diana, "we still have the pieces of the mule, right?"

"Right. It don't run anymore, though."

"Does it have wheels?"

"Yes..." Pipsqueak replied, confused. "They're busted up somethin' fierce, but they still turn."

"Good," he said, "I'll prep that before I go, and you and the Duke'll have instructions to use that if it gets hairy. Here," he continued, holding out a pair of communicators, "I'm on line 2, you're on line 3, Haru's on line 1." Haru looked floored to be included, but Jet didn't really get why — he'd made it pretty clear that he didn't have any intention of going back to Persephone, which meant that he was part of the crew for now, and part of the job.

"We're planning?" Diana asked, sauntering into the dining room, looking only slightly worse for having slept on a metal floor for three nights.

"Yeah, you're going in first with me and Bee," he replied, loading a magazine with hollow-point rounds. "We're gonna see about bargaining with Hama."

"I'm going with you," someone said suddenly, and they turned. Katara was standing in the doorway, looking determined. "I'm a better negotiator than any of you, anyway," she added.

He watched her carefully for a long moment — why did _she_ want to go? — and then nodded. "Fine, get your princely boyfriend in here, we could use some fire, too. Bee, that puts you in charge of the home team, since she's volunteered to be the negotiator."

"Yes, sir," Bee replied, without looking up from her weapons.

"Why does she want to come?" Pipsqueak asked, and Jet shrugged.

"I don't know. Where was I?"

"You were busy telling me that you're going to be a _hóuzi de pìgu _and try to bargain with Hama," Diana explained, and he glared at her.

"Yeah, there," he deadpanned. "We're gonna see if we can convince her to hand over this friend o' yours."

"Hama doesn't negotiate," Diana said, like he didn't already know.

"Yeah, well, we just got paid, and everybody answers to the sound o' shiny," he growled, filling his last magazine and loading his pistols. "If she don't respond to the money, 'Squeaks and I got a code for "come bail my ass out" so we'll just use that and the second team'll come in, guns blazin'."

"You have to go in unarmed," Diana told him, slamming her palm on the table. He scowled at her.

"No, _really?_ You think this is the first negotiation we've run? We — "

"Yes," she snapped, cutting him off, "I _do_ think this is your first negotiation."

"It is," Bee told her, voice icy, "but we also have a lot of experience with Hama's sort, so you can hop off that high horse you've got crammed up your ass and leave the planning to the people you hired to do it."

"And if I don't?" Diana asked archly, raising one perfect white eyebrow. "You'll do what, little girl?"

Bee gave her a look that could make a Reaver turn tail and run. "I'm going to be real nice right now," she began, "and let the _little girl_ comment slide. Now, let's just say that if you don't listen to what I have to say, you'll find out how it feels to have a _real_ high horse shoved up your ass, _dong ma?_"

"And she won't use any lube, either," the Duke muttered, peering through the barrels of one of his shotguns. Jet snorted.

"We 'bout ready?" he asked, as Katara returned with Zuko.

"Yes," Zuko said, eyes ablaze, and Jet glanced around the room.

"Prince Hotman here is gonna stay on the ship," he declared, and Zuko's face shifted down, but Jet ignored it. "Gonna need some _real_ firepower when — _if _things get hairy. Y'all keep an eye on the Avatar, don't let Hama get even the faintest whiff he's onboard, _dong le ma?_"

"Do you think I'm stupid?" Zuko replied, and he raised an eyebrow.

"Do you really want me to answer that?" Katara laid a hand on Zuko's arm and said something to him quickly, voice too low for Jet to make out. He glared harshly at Jet for another long moment, and then nodded to Katara and stalked out of the room. "You're a saint for puttin' up with him," he grumbled, peering through the sights of his rifle at the Duke and miming shooting him, just for the hell of it. It was Bee who replied.

"He's not that bad, 'cept when you're being an ass to him," she said.

"I'm not an _ass_," he replied, affronted.

His whole crew laughed at him.

* * *

On the Tower-class ship _Desdemona_

Azula moved through an advanced kata in one of her rooms — she had specifically designed this one so that it was nearly soundproof, had several locks from the inside (and outside), and contained _nothing_ flammable, so that she could practice in absolute peace.

It was that _idiot_ Operative, getting mixed up in her business and throwing her plans off — _again._

She was getting quite sick of tiptoeing sweetly around the Parliament's man, and the Parliament in general; she had _plans_, big ones, the sort of plans that changed the shape of the 'Verse and put her at the forefront of a new regime, but those plans required the government get _out _of her way. The only reason she hadn't moved on them yet was the Avatar himself — Azula knew her history, and the folly of a two-front war. She didn't know for certain what sort of power he commanded, although she had personally interviewed several of the few survivors of Zhao's short-lived siege of the Water Tribe, and they all seemed to agree on one thing: there were _two _powers at work, and both were _unimaginably_ dangerous.

One man spoke of a woman wreathed in red — the now-infamous Demon of the Water Tribe — killing men with a flick of her wrist and cutting rows of soldiers into pieces with razor-sharp shards of ice; another spoke of a brilliant glow bringing a cyclone up from the ground and laying waste to an army ten-thousand strong. The Avatar and the water witch that Zhao had been hunting before Uncle's untimely disappearance... the one he had gone on and on about, this one woman he'd been chasing for over fifteen years, a waterbender from St. Albans who had fled to Sihnon and become a Companion.

Azula smirked; it was almost enough to make her believe in fate.

There were also mentions of men with fire in their hands — Uncle and Zuzu, obviously; wherever that waterbender went, her brother would follow, like a loyal puppy. At the capital, he had been _infatuated_ with her, sneaking out at odd hours to meet her, getting irrationally angry whenever Azula called her what she _was_ — a whore. Perhaps a classically trained one, but a whore nonetheless.

She finished the kata and scowled — her hair had come lose in the movements. She heaved a theatrical sigh for the benefit of no one, fixed her hair calmly, and started over again, because perfection was required at every level.

Her spies among the Operative's men had given her information that currently worried her more than the witch, though: a series of porcelain armlets that he wore that were all of the same make but different shapes. The evidence was thin, but when coupled with everything else she knew about Long Feng (and she knew a _lot_, probably more than even _he_ did), she felt confident in her conclusion: the Alliance had sent a master Earthbender — maybe the last one in _existence_ — to hunt down the Avatar.

She didn't know if it was gloriously intelligent or monstrously stupid.

It made sense, now that she was getting a clearer picture of Long Feng's history in her mind: he had shown a talent for earthbending at a young age (probably on Ariel or Shadow; the planets were known for being descended from the Earth Kingdom) and the Alliance had scooped him up, like they did all children who showed bending talent. Most were imprisoned for study or killed outright, but Long Feng was _crafty_ in a way that most people weren't — she wouldn't have been surprised if he, even at a very young age, had been able to talk his way out of prison or execution, by convincing the Alliance that he was more useful to them alive than dead.

That explained why they were so conservative with their best Operative; the last thing the Alliance needed was for their secret to get out. Officially, bending was a long-dead art and no benders had been born in over a thousand years — if the people knew that their government had been rounding up and killing children as young as four and five, and had been doing it for _centuries._.. They would be effectively destroyed from within.

"Milady?" a voice at her door said, and she mimed shooting lightning at it in irritation. Instead of _actually_ blasting the door to pieces, she took a deep breath.

"Yes?" she asked sweetly, smoothing her meticulous clothing and stepping calmly out of the room. It was the navigator, Quinn, and she wouldn't look at her.

"The Operative is here," Quinn said, "along with a Firefly, he seems to think you should see it personally."

"Oh?" she replied, raising an eyebrow and walking through the halls, Quinn following her loyally. "Does it have signs of bending having been performed lately?"

"Not to my knowledge, milady," Quinn murmured, and Azula heaved a sigh, turning on her.

"I don't make a habit of shooting messengers, Quinn," she said, glaring at her. "Stop acting like I'm going to kill you over this. You _shouldn't_ fear me... unless there's something I don't know about you?"

"Of course not, milady," she said quickly, "I just... I know how the lady dislikes the Operative."

"Well, that's true," Azula replied coldly. "He's a meddlesome fool."

"He... _is_ an Operative," Quinn said hesitantly, "and I don't believe that the Alliance employs fools for such jobs."

"On the contrary, Quinn, only a fool would do such a job," she countered, and when Quinn looked confused, she continued. "Operatives are meant for one purpose: to keep secrets. They are _not_ to know what those secrets are. Do you understand how much willful ignorance and blind loyalty that requires?" she scoffed, and waved a hand. "And on top of this, our _friend_," she said the word like it was covered in poison, "already knew what we were dealing with. Not only was he a fool to become an Operative in the first place, but he isn't even doing his job properly. I must say," she sighed, "he just _hasn't _measured up to his reputation."

"I'm wary of him, milady," Quinn gushed, biting her lip with fear at the sudden outburst, as though Azula would strike her down for speaking out of turn — which was a bit disheartening; that was something she would only do if she thought Quinn was being insubordinate. "I worry that there is more to him than meets the eye."

"Quinn," she replied warmly, "there _always_ is. Do you know what the trick is?" she asked, and then continued without giving the other woman a chance to respond. "You must always ensure that they know less about you than you do them," she explained. "Like the Operative, I have also done my research; unlike the Operative, I'm a more skilled researcher. Don't worry, Quinn," she added, congenial and venomous, "I have him completely under my control.

"_I_ will capture the Avatar," she continued softly, composing herself before going into the meeting room where Long Feng waited. "He is merely an obstacle, one I will take care of when the time is right."

* * *

Hama Sila's Skyplex, orbiting the planet Ezra

Katara led the way into Hama's skyplex, since she was playing lead negotiator. She had been fully prepared to stay on the ship with Aang and Toph, but she remembered those scrolls that Bee had seen when they were picking up the train job, and although Sokka insisted that this was the stupidest thing she'd ever done, she had to take the chance that they might be about waterbending, or any bending, _something_ useful. The odds weren't in her favor, but she just couldn't get the image of Toph, sprawled out at her feet and sobbing, out of her mind's eye.

If there was a chance, she had to risk it, and besides, she _was_ a better negotiator than Jet.

The woman they called Diana walked next to her, scowling, while Jet walked behind them, playing the part of dutiful servant to the Companion who had shown up. This whole gamble was fragile, and she was glad to know that the others were waiting in the wings to save them when it would all inevitably go wrong.

"Lady Hama Sila," one of the men said, opening the door, "the Companion, Lady Katara Nerrevik. She is here about... Madame Malina."

The woman inside the room hardly looked as dangerous as Sokka and Bee had sworn she was — in fact, she looked downright _friendly._

"Lady Katara, and Captain Reynolds," she replied, bowing her head slightly and smiling with a mouthful of black teeth, "come in, come in. It's good to see you again, Jonathan," she said warmly, and Jet stiffened. "And who is this — ?"

"This is Diana, a friend of Madame Malina's," she explained. "Diana would like to see the lady, if she is here."

"Oh, she's here," Hama replied, "and still kicking, if you care. She wronged me," she said matter-of-factly, "and no, she can't see her daughter."

Katara glanced at Diana — the woman they were springing was her _mother?_ "Her daughter?" she repeated dumbly, and Diana scowled.

"Yes, I recognize the hair," Hama answered, pointing to Diana's head and smiling in way that set Katara on-edge. "Not many people under the age of seventy with hair that color. How's it a pretty young thing like you ended up with a head full o' white hair, eh?"

Diana glowered. "A botched dye job," she snapped, and Hama barked out a laugh.

"I'll let you see her if, if you like," she offered, like it was a huge favor. "Crow, open the window for our guests," she said, and they turned as the large, tattooed man walked over to a wall and pulled on a section of it, revealing a window, or a two-way mirror. On the other side of it was a woman with startlingly white hair sprinkled with blood, and she was chained to the ceiling by her wrists. She was crying.

Katara felt sick; this was a nightmare.

"We have payment," she said, putting her training to use in keeping her face completely free of emotion. "Five thousand credits."

Hama appeared to think about that, and then grinned. "Just because I like your crew so much, I'll be nice. That'll get you... half, that seem fair?" she suggested. "You get first pick, too. Top, bottom, left, or right?"

"No deal," Jet said, before Katara could speak. She shot him an incredulous glare — what, did he actually think she was considering it? — but he just raised an eyebrow, and she caught on — that was his and Pipsqueak's code. The sirens went off and after a long, tense minute where they all stood and waited for something to happen, Hama watching them with a calculating, condescending look, a loud crash sounded from the distance as _Freedom_ violently pulled in to land at the skyplex.

"You really thought to play me? How ungrateful. After all I've done for you," she huffed indignantly, mockingly, and raised her hands into a strange... a _familiar_ form. Katara felt the pull on her blood, and she heard her companions shout, and she reacted — felt it, the way that Aang and Zuko had talked about, the movement and the _pulse_ and the rush of pressure against the vessels. She raised her hands into the same form, _pulling_ on Crow's blood and Hama's blood, and the woman gasped at her before she burst into laughter. "Oh, now _that's_ rich! You bring your very own bloodbender into my den. That's a new one, I'll admit."

Jet hit the ground just behind her, gasping and clutching his sides. "What the _hell_ was that?" he hissed, and she stared at Hama. That was the special torture she used, that had done — _that_ — to Diana's mother, that had made her name known through this quadrant as someone not to cross. She _tortured _people with the same technique that Katara had used to stop the Alliance on St. Albans.

"So, the Companion is a waterbender," Hama crowed, "and a powerful one, at that. We can deal," she said, grinning, "an even trade. You get the Madam Malina back if I get to keep the little bloodbender — just to teach, mind," she added innocently, but her eyes glittered with something that Katara didn't want to name. "I'm just _dying_ to train another powerful bender."

"No deal," Jet replied sharply, standing up, and Hama twisted her hands again, but then Katara followed her movements and she seized up for a second, then shot her a vicious glare.

"You can't bend my blood, little girl, no more than I can yours," she said coldly, and then swept her hand over a potted plant on her desk. Abruptly, it turned to a brown husk, and Hama was attacking her with shards of ice. Katara stepped backwards, gasping, and caught the ice, forming it into her own tide that she threw back at the old woman.

It was clear, though, that Hama was the superior bender — perhaps Katara had the _power_ to beat her, but she lacked the training. "You're an amateur," Hama said, pinning her to the wall with knives of ice. "I, on the other hand..."

How? Katara wondered. How had she found training? It had to be proof that the scrolls were about waterbending — but now she was in over her head.

Jet tackled Hama then, and Diana hit Crow full across the face with the dead potted plant before shattering the two-way mirror with the heavy lamp on Hama's desk and diving through to free her mother. Katara pulled the water from the ice-sickles, splitting it into two and freezing Crow to the wall with one half, then followed Diana.

"Yue," the woman gasped, "Yue, you came for me — you — _no_ — "

Katara froze.

_Yue_. That was the name of Chief Arnook's _daughter_ — she tried to remember what had happened to her and her mother. Father had told her once, but it had happened before she could remember, Arnook had — something, he had done something bad, and his wife had left him and taken their daughter with her, just fled the planet.

Yue was Diana, Pheobe, Ceridwen — the last Water Tribe princess descended from the ancient moon goddess Yue herself, a line that went back to the Age of Bending.

"Ssh, mother," Yue breathed, easing her into her arms, "I'm here. I brought a healer," she said, and shot Katara a watery glare, daring her to comment on their shared heritage. She rushed over and began to heal the woman with Hama's water. It didn't help overmuch, but it did seem to ease her pain.

"There's a doctor on the ship," she said, and the woman smiled.

"Kya," she muttered, "I never thought I would..." Her eyes fluttered closed, but Katara had a finger on her pulse; her heart was still beating, if weakly.

"She's alive," Katara said fervently, "we can get her to — " She cried out as a wave of water hit her in the chest and she hit the far wall, blacking out.


End file.
